Illinois college to raze, replace hall

DeKALB, Ill. -The Northern Illinois University building where a gunman killed five students in an auditorium lecture hall, then committed suicide on the stage, will be demolished and replaced, school officials said yesterday.

Cole Hall - a huge classroom building at the center of the 25,000-student campus - will be replaced with a state-of-the-art classroom building to be named Memorial Hall, the university said.

Students on campus seemed torn about the announcement.

"Some people can't stand to look at it, and others see it as a memorial as it is," freshman Cassie Dodd said. "Personally, I think it should stay. It's a part of us now."

Junior Jessica Burnside disagreed.

"It's a trophy of a tragic, destructive event," Burnside said. "Nobody wants to be reminded of it."

Former graduate student Steven Kazmierczak burst into the auditorium Feb. 14, carrying at least four guns, and fired dozens of shots into a geology class, killing five and wounding at least 16 before turning the gun on himself.

Demolition of the 40-year-old Cole Hall could begin this spring, and construction on the building is expected to begin in the summer, NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara told the (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle. Students could use the new facility as early as December 2010.

At Virginia Tech, officials decided to turn the classroom space in Norris Hall, where student Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 people before killing himself, into a peace center and interactive learning space.