Guv wants to give $40 million to Cole Hall replacement, UPDATED X1

February 27th, 2008 at 04:07pm Andrea Zimmermann

Gov. Rod Blagojevich today urged the General Assembly to give Northern Illinois University $40 million to help replace Cole Hall, where the Feb. 14 deadly shooting took place.

Earlier today, the governor and NIU officials announced the plan to demolish Cole Hall and replace it with a new, state-of-the-art building named Memorial Hall.

It is still unclear how much the total project would cost, but the governor, flanked by Rep. Robert Pritchard and Sen. Brad Burzynski, said in his news release that the state should give NIU $40 million to help rebuild. The governor’s spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.

Pritchard and Burzynski agreed to sponsor the legislation to get the money, to “cover the cost of building Memorial Hall,” according to the release.

Also according to the release, university officials decided against re-oepening Cole Hall, and drew up the plan to demolish and construct a new building, which would take about two years.

Portions of the news release are below:

DEKALB – To honor the victims and help the student body move forward, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich joined NIU President John G. Peters, legislators and students today at Northern Illinois University (NIU) to announce new plans for Cole Hall, the scene of the tragic shooting that claimed the lives of five students and injured 17 more. Gov. Blagojevich said that he will introduce emergency funding legislation and work with state Sen. J. Bradley Burzynski (R-Sycamore) and state Rep. Robert Pritchard (R-Sycamore) to provide the University with $40 million for the project. Cole Hall will be demolished and replaced with a state-of-the-art classroom building to be named “Memorial Hall”.

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Memorial Hall will be a modern facility designed to accommodate the needs of today’s students. The new building will be approximately 40 percent larger than Cole Hall and will contain up to ten classrooms of varying sizes, three smart classroom auditoriums with capacity seating of approximately 250 each, instructional and media production computer labs, and additional office, storage and support space. The new building will be centrally located on campus in near proximity or in the same proximity as Cole Hall. Cole Hall is slated for demolition this Spring. The new building is expected to open in late 2010 or early 2011.

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Built in 1968, Cole Hall has been a staple for NIU’s academic programs and large general classes. The building houses the campus’ larges lecture halls, which are in great demand given the university’s rapid student growth. In addition to the auditoriums, Cole Hall houses Anthropology and Journalism space in the basement level. …

UPDATE 1

Sen. Brad Burzynski said the entire cost of the project will be $40 million.

Also earlier, he said the NIU administration brought the plan to the state, after consulting with other universities that had endured similar tragedies, such as Virginia Tech.

Entry Filed under: Robert Pritchard, Brad Burzynski, Rod Blagojevich