The Holmes Student Center tower will shine in the NIU sky tonight at an official lighting ceremony.

NIU President John La Tourette said the new ridge lighting on the copper top of the building will enhance NIU’s landmark reputation.

“The lights will be very prominent to air traffic and so they should make the campus even more of a landmark,” La Tourette said.

A reception including several NIU administrators and past and present Student Association senators will be held in the student center Skyroom at 8:00 p.m. before the 9:00 p.m. lighting ceremony.

The ceremony will be conducted on the front steps of Founders Memorial Library, where La Tourette and SA President Huda Scheidelman will give the signal to light the building.

Conrad Miller, NIU Physical Plant project manager, said the low-energy lights might take several minutes to warm up to full intensity.

Most people will find the lights, glowing with a white gas, to be “aesthetically pleasing and welcome addition to the area’s nightscape,” he said.

The 16-story tower underwent a year-long, $2.5 million facelift to replace falling bricks with a limestone-panel exterior.

La Tourette said the lights and pyramid-shaped copper roof will make the student center the tallest building between DeKalb and Des Moines, Iowa.

He said pilots frequently comment to him that they use the campus buildings, particularly the residence halls, to determine their location while airborne.

La Tourette said an airline pilot once commented that NIU is “the last bastion of civilization between here and the Rockies.”

Many prominent business people and politicians come to NIU not realizing how big NIU is physically, La Tourette said.

Renovating the tower “is one way of displaying the resources we have available,” he said.

Scheidelman said the SA was “integral” in getting bids for the new design and students last year had an oppurtunity to take a vote on the building’s design and price.

“Basically, we try to gear the student center toward accomodating student needs,” she said.

After Wednesday, the lights will be activated by a photoelectric cell that will turn on every night between sunset and sunrise, Miller said.

Representatives from the project’s general contractor, J.P. Cullen of Janesville, Wisconsin and architects Ware Associates also will attend.

The student center is a bond revenue building paid for by student and user fees, so no tax money was used for the remodeling.