Built in 1978 as a lecture hall, Iowa Central Community College’s Decker Auditorium was not designed to support the vocal, instrumental, and theatrical performances it has hosted for the last few decades as the campus’s primary performance venue. Renovations and a two-story addition at the front of the venue will create a modern, multipurpose center for performing arts.

The addition includes a new main entrance with a lobby and gallery space, classrooms, rehearsal, and back-of-house spaces. It also creates a secondary entry with additional pre-function space. An elevator in the addition improves general accessibility, particularly for audience access to balcony level seating.

The reimagined center will include an expanded and refurbished theater with 1,089 seats, a new stage, curtain, and orchestra pit. Updated technology includes new theatrical lighting and audio equipment, which will improve experiences for the hearing impaired. Acoustic panels will improve experiences for both performers and audience members.

Off-stage, an expanded green room and new scene shop will better serve student performers. Additional spaces include classrooms, practice rooms, and meeting rooms for students and faculty. The addition not only adds much needed space, by wrapping around the east and south sides of the building it creates a connection between front-of-house and back-of-house spaces which currently do not connect and require travel outside to get from one space to the other.