The anticipated renovations of Cole Hall at Northern Illinois U. are now being set in motion as the design phase is under way.
During the summer months, the official design of the renovations will be decided. In addition, housekeeping chores will be taking place within Cole Hall, such as cleaning out old media and preparing the building for construction.
In January, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced that $8 million will be budgeted to NIU directed toward renovating Cole Hall, which has been closed since the Feb. 14, 2008 shootings took place in Room 101.
Jeff Daurer, Director of Capital Budget and Planning, expects the complete renovations on Cole Hall will cost an estimated $6 million, with the additional $2 million going toward a relocation of an additional auditorium elsewhere on campus to make up for the lost auditorium space. Cole Hall originally housed two auditoriums, one of which, Room 101, was the site of the shootings. It has been decided that the space will not be reused for educational purposes.
“We understand our budget and we will come up with a design to that level,” Daurer said. “We can build quite a renovation for $6 million. It should be beautiful.”
At the May 3 Board of Trustees meeting, Daurer presented preliminary designs for the building and discussed plans for the space.
“It won’t look like it does today,” Daurer said.
According to a May 17 Northern Today article written by Joe King, a new Anthropology Museum and a collaborative computer laboratory will replace Room 101. The remaining auditorium in Cole Hall, Room 100, will additionally be renovated and will remain as an auditorium.
“One of the greatest challenges was finding a way to bring badly needed lecture space back online while accommodating the widely held opinion that the site of the shootings never again be utilized as classroom space,” King stated in the article.
Vice Provost Earl Seaver is optimistic about the outcome of the potential design plans and believes the design will benefit student learning.
“Getting a state-of-the-art lecture hall is a great asset for the institution and our students,” Seaver said. “The old lecture halls were pretty dated, and these new auditoriums are going to be a much better learning environment.”
The refurbished auditorium is expected to seat 300 to 400 people and will include modern standards for space allotment and smart classroom technology. At the BOT meeting, Daurer said Room 100 would change from “an airplane hangar with seats” to a state-of-the-art facility.
Tentatively, Daurer anticipates the reopening of Cole Hall in Fall 2011.
“We anticipate bidding [the drawings] in November, during which we will take the completed design out to the community and begin looking for contractors,” said Daurer.
No construction is likely to be visible to students in the upcoming fall semester, Daurer said. However, students will be able to notice the beginning stages of construction going on in Spring 2011.