April 29, 2008
NIU To Renovate, Not Demolish, Cole Hall
The president of Northern Illinois University announced today that the school no longer plans to demolish Cole Hall. In a letter to students, John G. Peters wrote, "In ratios ranging from 3-to-1 to 4-to-1, our campus community asked that Cole Hall remain standing, but that it not be used for instructional purposes in its current configuration."
NIU is now conducting a survey of what should be done with the first floor space--renovate both auditoriums A and B for non-classroom activities? Renovate both for continued use as lecture halls? Or keep just auditorium B, the scene of the crime, for non-classroom purposes? Peters expects to get a recommendation Friday. [NIU]
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it's good to see common sense prevail once in a while
all i know is i spent plenty of time in those 2 lecture halls, and they were in a serious need of an upgrade to begin with. granted, the amount blago proposed $40 million) sounded extremely high considering they were able to build a glimmering new business hall for around 20-30 mil. However, sometimes renovation is just as costly as building new. And seeing as how this building in particular is one of the heaviest used on campus (most mass LAS lectures), I'm having a hard time figuring out how they're going to manage without that space for the next 2-3 years.