ORONO (AP) – A Florida couple is donating $6 million to the University of Maine and the bulk of the money will be used to renovate the Maine Center for the Arts.

The arts center will be renamed in honor of the donors, Richard and Anne Collins of Key Largo, Fla., President Robert Kennedy announced Thursday evening.

About $5 million of the gift is dedicated to the Maine Center for the Arts, which will become the Richard R. and Anne A. Collins Center for the Arts. The remainder will go toward renovations at Memorial Hall, Kennedy said.

Kennedy described the couple as being “among the University of Maine’s most generous and faithful donors.”

The couple met at the University of Maine.

Dick Collins, who played on the Black Bear basketball team before graduating in 1959, grew up on a potato farm in St. Agatha. He is a retired life-insurance executive.

Anne A. (Barclay) Collins, a member of UMaine’s Class of 1961, was born in Belfast and raised in Farmington.

The couple have a summer home in Northport.

Construction is already under way on the arts center renovation, which will feature a new glass entrance, a renovated lobby, a new Hudson Museum on the second floor and a significant face-lift in the Hutchins Concert Hall.