Columbine High School won’t be torn down, according to district officials who considered demolishing the site over unwanted attention to the campus where 12 students and a teacher were slaughtered in 1999. 

Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Jason Glass said an online survey showed that 57 percent of roughly 7,000 respondents opposed a proposal to demolish the existing campus and build one just west of its current site at a cost of up to $70 million.  In contrast, 31 percent said it was “not at all important” to replace the existing school. 

“While this concept has supporters and merits, there are also valid concerns that were raised,” Glass wrote in a letter released Wednesday. “ It is clear to me that no consensus direction exists to rebuild the school.” 

A debate on the future of the school began last month in light of some 2,401 “unauthorized individuals” who visited the campus in the most recent school year, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of the massacre. 

Among those Columbine-obsessed people was a Florida teen who traveled to Colorado after buying a gun and was later found dead from an apparent suicide just before the 20th anniversary of the April 1999 shooting, Glass said in an open letter in June that cited the “lasting impact” of the mass shooting. 

To address that issue, Glass said Wednesday that security upgrades and other measures will be taken at the school to improve safety on campus, including an “improved and defined” perimeter around the building. 

“While final plans have yet to be determined, it is our goal to create a classic and stately appearance for the school that the community will be proud of,” the superintendent wrote. 

The enhancements will be funded by existing district resources rather than taxpayers, Glass said. 

The school is already scheduled to receive about $15 million in upgrades, thanks to bonds approved by voters last year, the Denver Post reports. 

“Overall, the survey indicated a 60% – 40% split against a Columbine rebuild,” according to a summary of the survey data. “ Many supporters desired a new facility with the same identity while other supporters suggested that a new name was necessary to prevent current challenges faced by Columbine.”