Connecticut Is Paying Millions To Demolish Sandy Hook Elementary And Rebuild On The Same Site

The residents of Newtown, Conn. have voted to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School and build a new school in its place, a move that will cost the state about $49 million, according to The Newtown Bee.

Residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure. Rebuilding on the same site is meant to be symbolic for the community still reeling from the mass shooting that killed 20 students and six educators in December, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The new building is scheduled to open in 2016.

Newtown also considered building a new school on a different site and renovating the current structure. Sandy Hook students are currently going to school in a building in a different town.

After the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 that killed 13 people, the school paid $1.2 million to renovate the building. They also blocked off the library where 12 students were killed, turned it into a memorial, and built a new library in a different location.