Va. Tech Building to Reopen; Officials Cite Fiscal Reasons

Norris Hall is known for its Gothic architecture, its central location on Virginia Tech's huge campus and, more than anything, its role as the primary site of the nation's deadliest individual shooting rampage.

The two-story building that witnessed so much carnage in April when a gunman killed 31 people there, including himself, will reopen in about two weeks and will be used for offices and laboratories, university officials announced yesterday.

Formerly used by several academic departments, Norris will house only two departments -- engineering science and mechanics, and civil and environmental engineering -- when it reopens June 18.

The decision comes nearly two months after student Seung Hui Cho of Fairfax County shot and killed 30 students and faculty members on Norris's second floor before shooting himself. Cho fatally shot two other students in a campus dormitory earlier that day.

Since the April 16 attack, Norris Hall has been empty, but debate has surfaced among university officials, parents, students and faculty members about what should be done with it. Some wanted to raze the building and replace with it a memorial. Others said it should be left alone.

Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations, said he hopes to announce plans for a memorial as early as this week. The primary reason Norris Hall is being preserved, he said, is that it houses expensive and heavy laboratory equipment that cannot be moved without major expenses.

"These labs are research labs with a hydraulics and fuel lab, a machine lab, a composite materials lab, a wave motion tank -- that gives you a sense of the sophistication and specialized use there," Hincker said. "Where are you going to move it? In the meantime, you have a department that helps other departments do their work in instruction and research. It's a real linchpin."

Although an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa., was torn down after five girls were killed there last year, Hincker said university officials looked at how the Pentagon moved forward after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, especially, how Columbine High School in Colorado refurbished its building after the deadly shootings there in 1999. Hincker said he was not sure whether families of the victims were consulted.

Hincker added that the school has not decided what will be done with the second floor, where Cho killed students and faculty members in four classrooms. When the building reopens, the hallways on the second floor will be open, but those classrooms -- where floors, ceilings and walls have been replaced -- will be locked. The university will require anyone who wants to enter Norris to show a university identification card.

Some students were not pleased with the university's decision. "I don't know what students would want to go back in the building. I know that I don't want to even see the building," said Kristen Wickham, 19, a rising sophomore, whose friend Caitlin Hammaren was killed there.

Siwar Bizri, 25, who just graduated and whose friend Reema Samaha of Fairfax County was killed in Norris Hall, said the building is forever tainted. "It has such a negative atmosphere and aura, so it seems difficult for me to think about what if I had a lab there," she said. "There were mixed feelings on campus about it. Some people thought it should be demolished. Others thought it should be renamed for the professor who tried saving lives."

Richard Benson, dean of the College of Engineering, used to have his offices in Norris but is moving out, much to the satisfaction of his fellow office workers who were there during the shootings. "I could go back, personally," he said. "But on the other hand, I work with other people who feared for their lives. As a human being, I feel for them, so on that level I don't want to go back."