Northern Star Online: Blagojevich, Peters propose $40M to replace Cole

Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced Wednesday that a funding bill will be introduced in Springfield to demolish Cole Hall and erect a new building.

The proposed building, Memorial Hall, will be a $40 million state-of-the-art general classroom building. NIU President John Peters said the building will be centralized on campus, but not on the Cole Hall site.

“We’re going to seek legislation to create a new building [at] a new location, a new hall for the students of NIU to take classes,” Blagojevich said. “Cole Hall will be torn down, but what happened there will never be forgotten. At the same time, we will build a new building, Memorial Hall, to memorialize the students who lost their lives and to remember what happened, but to also look to the future ... so [NIU students] can learn and develop the skills they need to get a college education.”

Blagojevich said he is cautiously optimistic about the appropriation for the building passing both the Senate and House. He said the building will be paid for through long-term bonds and the $58 billion budget from taxpayer money.

Blagojevich was joined by Sen. J. Bradley Burzynski (R-Sycamore) and Rep. Bob Pritchard (R-Sycamore) in the push for a new building. Burzynski is the Senate sponsor for the appropriation, and Pritchard is the House sponsor.

“The state of Illinois will help the students of NIU in every way it can to move on from this senseless tragedy,” Burzynski said. “This will be our lasting dedication to the lives we lost and the family and friends who mourn them everyday.”

Getting Started

Peters indefinitely closed Cole Hall on Feb. 15 as a short-term solution, he said. Peters said he pleaded with Blagojevich, Pritchard and Burzynski to get state help with what to do with the building on the long-term scale. He added that a renovation would be too costly and that tearing it down was much more cost-efficient.

“What I heard from students and parents is that site ought to be consecrated, that we ought to not put anything on that site,” Peters said.

Peters also added that a privately funded memorial to the deceased would be erected on the Cole Hall site. Details of the memorial have not been discussed, but student input will be taken into consideration.

“We’re going to have a committee look at a private memorial,” Peters said. “We’re going to have the committee get all kinds of good ideas and raise some private funding to memorialize that.”

Starting the project as soon as possible is a priority, Blagojevich said.
“I’m going to ask the legislature, in fact I’m going to call on the legislature to pass this appropriation so the work can begin immediately,” he said.

Cole, Memorial Hall Futures

Memorial Hall would host 10 classrooms of varying sizes and three Smart Classroom auditoriums with a seating capacity of about 250 people each. Memorial Hall would also feature an anthropology exhibit like the one currently in Cole Hall.

“This new facility will be an asset to the NIU community, while serving as honorable and appropriate commemoration for those who lost their lives on Feb. 14,” said Student Association President Jarvis Purnell.

Purnell extended support on behalf of the entire student body and hopes the students will have an active voice in the development of the project.

Peters said if all goes as planned, the planning phase for the new building will take about nine months, allowing bids to go out between January and March of 2009. Groundbreaking could occur in spring 2009, and occupancy could come as soon as December 2010. Peters anticipates the Cole Hall demolition to occur in the late spring.

No other buildings will be demolished to make way for Memorial Hall, Peters said, but adjustments may be needed.

“We had the issue of what do we do to replace Cole Hall,” Peters said. “So someplace near there we want to put up a fitting learning structure to honor those students and fulfill our needs.”