Palmer Renovation
The new Athey Center for Performance and Research
The renovation of Palmer Auditorium into the new Athey Center for Performance and Research ensures that Conn continues making performing and visual arts essential to the student experience, a tradition that has earned the arts programs national and international prominence.
The approximately $24 million project was funded through gifts to the College, including a $10 million grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and a $10 million gift from Nancy Marshall Athey ’72 and her husband, Preston Athey, longtime supporters of the College and its arts programs. The renovation was led by Ennead Architects, a New York City-based architectural firm that specializes in the design of performance spaces.
The revitalized Palmer, enhanced through historically informed renovation, will become a hub of innovation that encourages new forms of experimental practice, entrepreneurial collaboration and dialogue on critical issues of our time.
“We were so pleased to play a part in bringing this wonderful project to fruition and to help in the reinvention of a venerable and historic building into a new center for the arts,” said Nancy Athey. “With this investment, we hope to bring the greater New London community to the campus and to contribute to the College’s continued preeminence in the creative and performing arts.”
The Athey Center for Performance and Research will:
- Become a hub of innovation and collaboration that encourages experimental practice and dialogue on critical issues of our time
- Promote pioneering artistic production and research
- Attract world-renowned artists-in-residence
- Foster innovative collaborations across the disciplines
- Advance the work of Connections
- Enable new creative works oriented toward social change
- Bring together alumni leaders in the arts