Instead of a ground-breaking, Augustana College held a "shelf smashing" this week to celebrate the next major building project on campus. Renovation of the 70 year old Bergendoff Hall will cost 10 to 12 million dollars.
Executive Vice President Kent Barnds says the first phase, beginning this summer, will focus on the music education department.
"The space that used to be Potter Hall, which had been our theater, will be converted into two new classrooms and rehearsal spaces. And then also a magnificent, small performance space that we're really excited to introduce."
Phase one will cost about 2 million dollars and the whole project will take three to four years.
"Bergendoff Hall, because it's such an important building on campus and is so busy, is a facility that we can't take offline during the academic year so we have to use the summers as efficiently as possible and it's likely to be accomplished over the course of three to four summers."
No major changes are planned for Centennial Hall. Barnds says this will be the first substantial update of Bergendorff Hall since it was built in the mid-1950's.