K-State's getting a new front door.

East Stadium, which is currently home to offices, classrooms and a theater, will be transformed into a new welcome center for the K-State Community.

The Memorial Stadium Welcome Center will be a place where students, families and visitors can easily connect to services like New Student Services and Career and Employment Services.

The project's estimated cost is $15 - $17 million and the goal is for it to be fully funded by private donations.

"Right now it is President Schulz's No. 1 fundraising initiative," said Pat Bosco, vice president of student life and dean of students. "We are meeting with alumni, prospective donors in a strategic way to raise approximately $17 million of private money that would go toward this 24,000 square-foot renovation."

Memorial Stadium, built to honor K-State alumni who served in World War I, was completed in 1924. Renovations for the new center will start about two years after the all of the money is raised, Bosco said.

Nick Moeder, junior in business and member of Student Foundation, said where the funds go is not up to the university.

"It is all up to the donor," he said. "So, if they want to donate to a project like this they can do that, but if they want to donate to the college of architecture or whatever that might be, they can do that too. It's all up to the donor where that money goes, though."

Bosco said the center will combine Career and Employment Services, currently located in Holtz Hall, and New Student Services and Admissions, located in Anderson Hall.

"I'm not aware of a facility in America that combines those two very important services in one location," Bosco said. "Where a prospective student and their family members get a chance to get a feel of the wow factor of a major university and then look down a hallway and see the end result; kind of the alpha and the omega."

The new center will replace areas located in East Stadium, like the Purple Masque Theater.

Charlotte MacFarland, associate professor in the department of communication studies, theatre and dance, said the theater department has gone back and forth on whether they like the idea of the center.

Original plans had the Masque being moved under West Stadium, so the center could be built in East Stadium.

"We were going to move there, the Welcome Center was going to go in and everything would be just fine," MacFarland said. "The problem happened when the financial crisis hit and we were told ‘Well, we don't know where we can build a new Purple Masque.'"

After that, MacFarland said she was afraid the Masque would be without a home, but the center would still be built.

"Initially they were just going to kick us out of a building that is very important to us and also has been a theater with stories of ghosts and everything for 30 years," MacFarland said.

MacFarland said many students and alumni complained, even creating a Facebook page called "Save the Purple Masque."

"Purple Masque is kind of a holy grail to a lot of people," MacFarland said.

She said K-State President Kirk Schulz has assured the theater department the Masque will not be moved unless it has a proper space to move to.

"I know there are people who just want the Welcome Center and they don't care about us, but that's not the president," MacFarland said. "He's been wonderful to us and he understands the situation and that we're not going to just be moved out with no place to go."

Bosco confirmed that the Masque will not be left homeless.

"Nothing is going to be done with the Welcome Center without first and foremost a solution for the Purple Masque," Bosco said. "It's a longstanding academic program and a tremendous part of our history. There has to be a location found that works for everyone with the Purple Masque before the project is seriously going to be taken off the planning, to the execution stage."

While some students might be upset about relocating the Purple Masque, others are unsure about the remodeling of the stadium itself.

"Messing around with Old Stadium; I don't know if I like that idea," said Nick Jones, junior in athletic training. "There is a lot of history there."

Next week, Moeder, along with Courtney Hallenbeck, junior in criminology and international studies and member of Student Foundation, will attend a conference in Kansas City, Kan., to talk about the center.

"We're going to be visiting with some alumni and giving them a first glance at the project, just kind of giving them an idea of what's going to happen," Hallenbeck said. "Get them excited, as we are."