SILVER SPRING, Md. (Map, News) - A $3 million contribution to Montgomery College will help the school complete the transformation of an old Giant Food bakery into a new, state-of-the-art visual arts center in Silver Spring, President Charlene Nunley announced Tuesday.

The gift, from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, is the largest in the school’s history and the largest ever to a Maryland community college, officials said.

The $33 million, 133,000-square-foot visual arts center, scheduled to open in 2007, is one of four new buildings planned in the college’s Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus expansion. It will be named for the Cafritz foundation.

The facility will be home to the college’s arts programs and will house studios available to community artists for rent. It will seek out “significant” ties with local artists and will offer rental space to them for use as studios, spokesman Steve Simon said.

“Part of the rebirth of Silver Spring is focused on the arts,” said Brad Stewart, vice president and provost of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus. “What the Cafritz gift will do is help us transform that into a first-rate visual arts facility.”

The college acquired the former Giant Food bakery building, located on a four-acres off Georgia Avenue for $6 million in 2001 — $1.25 million below market value. The Montgomery College Foundation secured a $33 million bond for the building’s renovation into a visual arts center.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com