Jacksonville Area Museum Readies Phase II Expansion Reveal

By Benjamin Cox on October 29, 2024 at 5:43am

The Jacksonville Area Museum took another step over the weekend to expand its space.

According to the museum’s Facebook Page, that paint is now up on the Phase II Expansion portion to the back half of the Old Post Office Building. The post says that members of the museum’s board and volunteer staff will now start installing new exhibits.

Museum Board member David Blanchette says that the exhibits will now have triple the space when things are done: “When we first opened the museum, we did a u-shaped [pattern] with the old lobby areas in the old East and West wings is the museum as it exists now. It’s kind of a horseshoe shape. In the middle of that horseshoe is three times more space than that. That’s the old main mail-handling area. That is the focus of the half-million dollar expansion project right now. All of the walls, all the painting, all the electricity, the HVAC units…everything – those have all been installed. The project will be substantially complete in just a couple of weeks, which means we can start getting in to put up the exhibits in there. So, the first floor, in a month or so, will be the way we want it.”

Blanchette says that a Phase III renovation for the basement of the building is planned for the distant future. The museum recently crossed the 5,000 visitor threshold. Blanchette says those involved with the museum believe that attendance will more than double once the Phase II expansion opens to the public.

The museum board is currently awaiting an answer from the city council on whether or not the building will become city property.