Robb Elementary School, where a gunman walked into the building in late May and killed 21 people in Uvalde, Texas, will be demolished and rebuilt, the school district announced Tuesday.
Texas grocery chain H-E-B said it will donate $10 million to kick off the effort, while Texas contracting firm Joeris and Texas architect firm Huckabee will provide their services for free.
"We will never forget those who were senselessly taken from us on that tragic day, and we want to honor their legacy as we work to build our future," Dr. Hal Harrell, the superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said.
"Along with the entire Uvalde community, we are immensely grateful for the extreme generosity from our amazing donors, and we look forward to collaborating on this exciting new campus," he said.
Robb Elementary has been permanently closed since the shooting. The location, design and timeline of the new campus has not yet been determined, as the project is still in its beginning stages.
It is also unknown what grades the school will house. But the new school will have educational, technological and security enhancements, the district said.
The school will be demolished so "students and staff will not have to return to the building at the site of the tragedy," it said.
Robb Elementary was built in the 1960s and serves about 550 students from the second to fourth grades.
"As we continue to mourn tremendous loss, I join with my family and H-E-B in working to ensure the Uvalde community can move forward from this tragic event," H-E-B Chairman Charles Butt said. "Our children are this country's future, and our schools should be a safe place where children can thrive and envision new possibilities."
H-E-B previously committed $500,000 to supporting victims of the shooting, while the company's charitable trust donated another $500,000 to organizations supporting Uvalde.
The school district is taking donations for the project at https://uvaldecisdmovingforward.org/.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
