Engineering students will go to class on campus in a few years instead of trekking to Sycamore.

The $22 million engineering building will be built on Garden Road, 300 feet north of Anderson Hall and across from the intersection of Garden Road and Northern Lane.

Construction will begin after a year of designing by Holabird & Root, the Chicago contractor also designing the Faraday II project.

Patricia Perkins, assistant to Eddie Williams, NIU vice president of finance and planning, said there are about 1,040 engineering majors who would be served in the facility.

To accomodate the students, the building will have 10 classrooms and an auditorium with about 120 seats at tables, said Douglas Snow, NIU Capital Building Planning Assistant.

There also will be more than 30 labs for instruction and research.

The engineering building will be about the same size of Montgomery Hall, which is located just northwest of Faraday Hall, and will have 100,000 square feet.

olabird & Root plan to use the natural grade of the land to partially hide the building and a 125-space parking lot which will accompany the hall.

Tennis courts and fields already exist where the building will stand, but will be relocated with suggestions from the physical education department.

Anderson Hall and the future building are not currently on a Huskie Bus route. However, since occupancy is anticipated in 1993, the Student Assobiation Mass Transportation Board is studying the issue as a part of its five-year plan.

“For this year, a serious survey will be looked at and for the most part, (an Anderson Hall and engineering building stop) may fit into part of another plan to have a shuttle bus ride the perimeter of campus,” said Mass Transit Adviser Todd Allen.

Allen added service to the Sycamore engineering building “depends on a ridership survey of 7/9 (bus route) and the response we receive from the university whether Sycamore will still be used or not. But currently, we are dedicated to 7/9 Sycamore service.”