The ground floor of Baker University's Rice Auditorium is empty for 00,000 of renovations that will replace carpeting, seating and rebuild the stage. The work is expected to be completed Sept. 30.

Baker University students returning to the school’s Baldwin City campus for the start of classes Wednesday will find the school’s 52-year-old performing arts center getting a makeover.

David Houchen, Baker vice president of finance and administration, said a $300,000 renovation project to Rice Auditorium began Aug. 1 and was expected to be completed Sept. 30. The auditorium’s cornerstone dates its construction to 1955.

“Rice hasn’t had a major renovation for 30 or 40 years,” he said. “We tried to figure out how old the seats were that were removed. They were there since the 1950s.”

Rice Auditorium is a performance venue for Baker’s theater and music department. It hosts special campus functions like this week’s student orientation and is made available for Baldwin City community events, Houchen said.

The renovation project will replace the seating in the auditorium and the carpet in the aisles, Houchen said. The control rooms near the entry to the ground floor seating will be relocated and outfitted with state-of-the-art lighting and sound controls, and a new stage will be installed, he said.

“The stage’s primary need was a new level floor,” he said. “There were a number of variants in the level of the old floor.”

Tom Heiman, Baker associate professor of theater, said the new stage would have an extension along its front lip, which would allow productions to do a number of different things by lowering the extension or removing parts of it. In addition, the new stage will accommodate a thrust addition that when installed for a performance will extend into the seating area.

“The first 100 seats upfront will be removable,” he said. “When we install the thrust stage, we will arrange the seating on either side so that the seats face the (thrust) stage.”

Heiman said the renovations would reduce the capacity of the auditorium’s ground floor from more than 600 to 405 seats. The auditorium was built to hold an audience of 860 with the balcony’s more than 200-seat capacity.

“I always wondered why they would build an auditorium in the 1950s with about 900 seats in Baldwin City,” he said. “We rarely fill it for any event.”

A tent has been erected on the campus for the student orientation events traditionally scheduled for Rice early in the school year, Heiman said. With the renovations, he has scheduled Baker’s early theatrical performances for area high schools, and some theatrical and musical performances have been moved back a few weeks until the work is finished, he said.

The Rice renovations, which are funded through private donations, follow the installation this summer of a new roof on the auditorium.

Heiman and Houchen said more work was planned for Rice in the coming years.

“This is just the first of three or four phases,” Heiman said. “Future phases will upgrade the lighting and sound systems, address the restrooms and look to renovate additional spaces, as well.”

Other recent upgrades to the campus included exterior painting to Gessner and Irwin residence halls, Houchen said. The lobbies of the two halls were also repainted and lobby furniture updated, he said.

An effort is also underway to make the campus more student friendly this fall, Houchen said. The Baker student union has expanded the hours of its cafeteria grill area and its coffee shop to 10 p.m., he said.

“In several student surveys, late evening food options were a common student request,” he said.

The Collins Library computer lab was expanded and more Macintosh machines were made available that can run as PCs, Houchen said. That expands the machines available for Baker’s music technology program, he said. Additionally, reference books were moved in the library to create more student study space, he said.