DatelineCarolina$23 million expansion project for S.C. State Museum

$23 million expansion project for S.C. State Museum

By Brett Weisband
Edited by Sarah Robbins

A $23 million expansion and renovation announced Wednesday will add a 4-D theater, planetarium and an observatory to the South Carolina State Museum.

"We really feel like this campus, right here in the Vista, can certainly become even better as a cultural destination campus," said William Calloway, the museum's executive director.

This will be the first renovation or expansion done to the building since the museum opened. The museum has been in the Columbia Mills building since opening in 1988. The building, along the Congaree River at the west end of Columbia's Vista district, has been on the National Register of Historic places since 1982.

Calloway said care would be taken to preserve the building.

The project, "Windows to New Worlds," will break ground in March. Construction is expected to take about 16 months, and the new attractions will be open by summer 2013, Calloway said.

In the 4-D theater, 3-D images will be shown on the screen and the audience will feel blasts of air and seat vibrations to create the 4-D experience.

The planetarium will have a 55-foot dome.

"This is not your dad's planetarium. This is a full digital dome that will give us content of all kinds," said Tom Falvey, the museum's education director.

The observatory will include a historic refractor telescope acquired from Columbia University and feature "eyepiece-to-projector" technology. This will allow live images captured by the telescope to be viewed in the planetarium and in classrooms around the state through the Internet.

Tanya Lee, an astronomy and physics teacher at White Knoll High School, said she looks forward to being able to show her students live images of what she's teaching them. Lee said light pollution now prevents her students from seeing many constellations.

Barbara Nutter, an 8th grade science teacher at West Ashley Middle School in Charleston, said viewing images from the telescope would meet four of the state standards for what science students need to learn. She said she has never taken her students on a trip to the museum but would use the online streaming.

The $23 million comes from federal, state and local government as well as private donors. The state is providing $11.5 million and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration $2 million. Richland and Lexington counties, Forest Acres and Columbia are also providing money.

Initial planning began in 1996 and included an IMAX theater. Calloway said that when he joined the museum in 2002, he refocused and scaled down the plan and moved away from the more expensive IMAX.

The museum projects 75,000 additional visitors and $1.7 million more per year from the project, Calloway said. The museum currently draws around 160,000 visitors a year according to spokesman Tut Underwood.