Plans to remake downtown York’s former Met Ed steam plant into a centrally located history attraction are moving forward.
Officials with the York County History Center said they have selected both the architectural firm and the exhibit design firm for the project, at the corner of North Pershing Avenue and West Philadelphia Street.
LSC Design Inc. of York will handle the architectural design, while the PRD Group LLC, of Chantilly, Va., will design the exhibits.
Both firms have extensive museum experience with historical topics, leaders of the new History Center project said.
In addition, the History Center has contracted with Capital Construction Management LLC of Derry Township, which provides construction management services, to assist with the center’s planning and implementation, center officials said.
History Center officials paid $1.75 million to purchase the building, and expect to spend about $12 million on renovation.
They also expect some $6 million in exhibit costs and $1.25 million in technology and “soft” costs, center officials said Monday. The center has applied for $10 million from the state-run Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, they added.
“We are beyond excited to have LSC Design, the PRD Group and Capital Construction Management as partners in this transformational project,” Joan Mummert, History Center president and CEO, said in a news release.
The experience of the firms will help the center in “becoming an engaging cultural destination through place-making and community participation that attracts visitors to York County,” Mummert said.
The building “will create a cohesive campus” along with the Colonial Complex (Golden Plough Tavern, General Horatio Gates House, and the Colonial Court House), all located within a block of the main museum, center officials said.
The York County History Center, formerly the York County Heritage Trust, is to open in the former steam plant within the next few years, center officials have said.
York-based LSC Design, founded in 1980, is a civil and environmental engineering, architectural design, interior design and structural engineering firm.
PRD’s museum projects include several Smithsonian Institution exhibits, several presidential libraries, the National Museum of the Civil War in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.’s Museum of the Bible, History Center officials added.
