A $7 million renovation to the Humanities Building is set to begin this July.

The project is funded by Measure V, a measure passed in 2008 that can only be used to fund infrastructure repairs and upgrades on campus.

“It’s like if you live in a home for 40 years and not do a thing,” said Dane Goodman, director of the Atkinson Gallery. “It’s time.”

The Humanities Building was built in 1975 and has not gone under any refurbishments since then.

The Atkinson Gallery, located on the second floor and where outside art exhibits are displayed for four-month periods of time, will be modernized. The gallery will add digital projection capabilities aiding students who want to display a multimedia presentation. The gallery will also receive a stainless steel finish to its walls as well as a retractable window system.

“The gallery is not going to be changed a lot but it will be bigger and have a more contemporary look,” said Goodman.

The changes to the rest of the building focus on the centralization and modernization of the building.

“It’s just kind of disgusting,” said Kimberlee Kolesnik, architecture major.

One of the major improvements coming to the building is a more centralized entrance.

As of now, the levels of the building all have their own entrances. An elevator system will be placed in the new entrance of the building allowing students to move between the floors in a more efficient manner, and to become more easily accessible for handicapped students.

The ceramics and sculpture classrooms will receive infrastructure improvements as well as improvements to the outside work space. There will be new doors installed connecting the classrooms to the outdoor workspace and dead space outside will be eliminated in favor of a more space efficient setup.

The art department will move to the portables that were recently occupied by the music and theater students during the renovation of the Garvin Theatre and Drama-Music Building that was finalized for Spring 2012.

Blake Knutson, an art history major at City College, will have transferred by the time construction will have started but said the transition to the portables “would be pretty brutal.”

Bernie Sayers, lab-teaching assistant in the art department, disagrees with the notion that there would be any negatives to the move.

“There are really good swing spaces being created,” Sayers said.

One of the small downsides would be that sculpture classes will not be able take their bronze-casting unit with them, but that they are working with the construction crew to make a deal so they could continue using it throughout construction, Sayers said.

The construction is set to take place from July 2012 to October 2013. Sayers and other faculty and staff are expecting it to take two years.

While the changes coming to the Humanities Building will take nearly two years to complete, Dane Goodman believes that it will be worth the wait.

“It’s going to make a progressive statement about the school and that’s great.”