New London — Connecticut College on Saturday held a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for its roughly $24 million renovation of Palmer Auditorium, the first major renovation since the Art Deco building opened in 1939.

College President Katherine Bergeron said that, come next semester, theater students will be relocated to the building that used to be the science center on Gallows Lane. The actual groundbreaking will be this winter, but the college wanted a ceremony while the weather was nice, and construction is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Bergeron said the total project cost will be about $24 million, with $10 million from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and $10 million from Nancy Marshall Athey, Class of 1972, and her husband, Preston Athey. The college announced the $20 million funding in April 2018.

The Atheys were at the ceremony Saturday, and Nancy Athey explained that she probably wouldn’t have been there if New London Hall had been torn down. It was the first old building on campus to undergo a major redo, and with the dedication in 2012, Athey was “so impressed” with what had been done.

Deciding to specifically support the renovation of Palmer Auditorium makes sense for the Atheys, who have long been financial supporters of music. Their 2012 gift of $855,000 enabled the purchase of 16 pianos and led to the official designation of Connecticut College as an All-Steinway School.

Bergeron explained that the plans include bringing daylight into the hall, installing an elevator, adding comfortable seats, improving sight lines and fine-tuning the acoustics. The school has contracted with the New York-based Ennead Architects and is currently going out to bid for construction. The size of the building will remain the same.

Bergeron said part of the renovated building will be named for the Atheys, something like the Athey Center for Performance and Research at Palmer Auditorium. She envisions the new Palmer Auditorium as a social convening space equally as important as the Crozier-Williams Student Center, or Cro.

“Spaces like these, like Palmer, welcome the entire community, just like how they welcomed me,” said junior Kiara Rivera, a theater major at Connecticut College.

Another goal is to better connect Palmer Auditorium with the adjacent Cummings Art Center, where the music department is housed.

“Even though the project isn’t touching Cummings Art Center, it feels like it’s touching Cummings Art Center,” department Chair Midge Thomas said. Theater department Chair Ken Prestininzi added that the courtyard between the two will become more of a gathering place after the renovation, rather than just a place where people just pass through, as it is now.

Both Thomas and Prestininzi indicated the renovation will enable better collaboration between departments.

“The renovation is in the spirit of openness, and easy access, and places for these creative encounters,” Prestininzi told The Day. He added, “So much art is created by proximity and sparking off each other.”

During the ceremony, Bergeron pointed to multiple instances of Connecticut College taking the arts seriously.

It was the first college in the country to offer music and art as full-fledged academic majors. It has brought in famed dancer Martha Graham, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. It is the home of David Dorfman Dance, and a biennial symposium on arts and technology.

e.moser@theday.com