Carnegie Hall in Orono, which houses the University of Maine Art Department, is many things. Spacious isn’t one of them.

Four instructors share one 75-square-foot office. Whoever gets there first gets the two desks. The rest go elsewhere. And then there are the students, hundreds of whom are shoehorned into one lecture hall, two classrooms and two basement studios over the course of a year.

But the department now will have plenty of room to move and grow – more than 27,000 square feet – in its new digs in historic Lord Hall.

Started in late 2001, the $5.375 million restoration and retrofit of the building has come in on budget and nearly on time. The cutting-edge facility, which will house the campus gallery, art history, art education and new media programs, will open to the public next Friday.

“This is the culmination of many, many years of work,” James Linehan, Art Department chairman, said as he recently walked through the sunny gallery space. “We’re just over the moon about this.”

Funded in part by a $4 million higher education bond on the 2001 ballot, the building’s completion poises the university to expand its curriculum with a graduate program in art history. It also will allow the department to strengthen its current offerings.

“Overall, it will help our recruitment and retention of both faculty and students – a lot,” Linehan said. “It’s just a beautiful space. It shows the state has a strong investment in the future of the arts on this campus.”

The state’s private colleges, in particular Colby College in Waterville, have a national reputation for their strong, well-endowed academic and gallery programs. A 1996 accreditation assessment gave high marks to UM’s art faculty but deemed the facilities inadequate. In a time when the creative economy is the buzzword in Augusta, this project underscores the importance of public arts education in that framework.

“Fine arts is a defining part of our society, and the renovated building will attract the best and brightest faculty and students,” Gov. John Baldacci said Thursday. “Fine arts education is also a tool to help all students develop skills of innovation and exploration that are increasingly essential skills in all professions. This addition is an important step in developing Maine’s creative economy.

“Investing in education and investing in the arts – growing our own talent – is exciting and rewarding for the future of our youth, our communities, and our economy,” the governor said.

Lord Hall is the first phase of a plan to provide 50,000 square feet of space for the department. The second phase, the Wyeth Center for Studio Art, will provide painting, printmaking and ceramics studios. One proposal is to renovate the neighboring Alumni Hall for that purpose, but for now, painting and printmaking will take over the vacated offices and classrooms in Carnegie while sculpture and ceramics remain in a separate building.

The move to Lord Hall makes a clear statement to prospective students, according to one art education major.

“A student coming to visit will probably take UMaine much more seriously,” said Heidi Crahen, 26, of Orono, a nontraditional student who has three classes in Lord next fall. “For a serious art student … it almost seems like Carnegie Hall was amateur, less professional.”

When artist Vincent Hartgen founded the department 1946, he was the sole professor. At the time, Carnegie Hall, originally the campus library, was a good fit for the fledgling program.

Today the department has 10 full-time faculty, 15 part-time faculty, and annually serves 200 majors and 500 other students.

An earlier plan to build a new facility for the art department and museum of art came with a price tag of nearly $15 million. The museum ended up moving to an 8,800-square-foot space in downtown Bangor, the renovation of which cost just under $1 million.

University relations director Joe Carr counts Lord Hall among the most expensive renovations on campus – the Memorial Union cost $12.5 million, but it included an extensive addition. Renovations without accompanying expansions are rare on campus.

One member of the UM board of visitors, Robert Edwards of Edgecomb, said it was still a bargain. During a tour of Lord Hall, the president emeritus of Bowdoin College remarked: “It’s amazing you could do this much with this building for a little over $5 million.”

Lord Hall’s placement on campus and on the National Register of Historic Places merited what Baldacci called “a spectacular historic and architectural rehabilitation.” The structure was built in 1904 for electrical engineering studies and also has held music and journalism classrooms.

The university hired Pamela Hawkes of Ann Beha Architects of Boston, the same firm that the UM Museum of Art used, to restore and reinvent the building. The contractor, Perry & Morrill of Bangor, saved the original molding and pressed-tin ceilings when possible.

The older aesthetic pairs well with the modern-industrial elements used in the renovation, such as exposed ductwork, a suspended metal track that cradles phone and Internet wiring, and large, white walls to exhibit artwork.

“It’s the perfect combination of new design and old design,” first-year art education major Elizabeth Nichols, 19, of Veazie said on Thursday. “For the first time, I feel lucky to be a freshman because I know the building will be there for me for my next three years.”

The public is invited to the grand opening of Lord Hall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 5. For information or to RSVP, call 581-1151.

Lord Hall

Built: 1904 as an electrical engineering building

Current use: Art classrooms

Cost of renovation: $5.375 million

Architect: Pamela Hawkes, Ann Beha Architects, Boston

Contractor: Perry & Morrill, Bangor

Square footage: 27,000

Galleries: one, with 210 running feet of exhibit space

Saved: tin ceilings, original doors and molding, layers of old paint in stairwell

Added: Media lab in attic, climate control, burnished ash floors, student and faculty lounges

Planned: Sculpture garden