School has new carpet, paint, cafeteria tables

By Holly Kurtz
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

The clear ceiling panel shattered by shrapnel has been replaced with glass the color of a hard green candy held up to light.

Like a yearbook at a 24th reunion, the blue arrow has faded above killer Dylan Klebold's old locker 837.

Four months and $1.2 million worth of repairs after the massacre of April 20, Columbine High looks like itself. Only better.

Insurance and $400,000 in donated labor and materials will cover the repairs.

The renovation took 48 days instead of the six or seven months it would normally have taken thanks to special efforts by contractors to make sure the school was ready by the first day of classes, said George Latuda, the district's construction management director.

When Columbine's new doors open Aug. 16, students and staff will walk across 360 square yards of new carpet, 47,250 feet of freshly laid vinyl tile and more than a mile of new rubber floor base. They will open 12 new metal doors and 13 new wood interior doors. They will pass 80,000 square feet of ceilings and walls painted with 650 gallons of paint. They will gaze through 143 pieces of new glass framed by 1,272 feet of new aluminum.

They will ride in a newly repaired elevator, follow new signs and eat lunch at new cafeteria tables with chairs attached.

"It feels great," student body president Mike Sheehan said Friday. "I feel right back at home again -- like I hadn't even left the building."

Some of the changes were functional. New panels line ceilings soaked by sprinkler water damage. Repairmen have replaced bullet-dented doors.

Other changes have more to do with erasing memories.

A new staircase leads to the entrance that killers Klebold and Eric Harris entered. New greenery will bloom next to the spot where Dan Rohrbough and Rachel Scott died. A temporary wall that cost $1,800 blocks the library until a student/parent/staff survey decides the fate of the room where most of the killings took place.

At least one room will be set aside for students to use when painful memories flare. It will be called a "safe room."

But school officials want to make sure the school stays a school, not a shrine. Nowhere on the wall tiles students and parents painted this spring and fall is the date "April 20."

The 231,000-square-foot school opened in 1973 at 6201 S. Pierce St.