Ohio History Connection to break ground on $17 million artifacts storage facility
The Ohio History Connection will break ground Thursday on a new $17 million storage facility at the Ohio History Center for over half of its over 1.8 million items related to Ohio history.
The new Collection Care Center, which will feature 16,500 square feet of storage space and 12,800 square feet of office and work space, will be located on the northeast part of Ohio History Center's campus at 800 E. 17th Ave. on Columbus' North Side, adjacent to I-71.
Construction will begin this month and work is estimated to be completed by early 2024, according to Neil Thompson, spokesperson for the Ohio History Connection.
The new facility will house historical artifacts for the history museum and research center, will be climate and humidity-controlled, and offer other modern solutions to storage of historical artifacts, Thompson said.
“There's a great deal that goes into this, but it's so important and paramount to protect this history for future generations to see and enjoy,” Thompson said.
The Ohio History Connection, formerly the Ohio Historical Society, is a statewide history organization tasked under the Ohio Revised Code with preserving and maintaining Ohio history. The organization received the financing for the collection center project through state appropriations going back to former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s administration and as recently as this year.
Most of the Ohio History Connection’s historical artifacts collections are currently being stored at several warehouses at an unpublicized location to avoid risks of theft or vandalism.
Thompson said the Ohio History Connection has been using the warehouses for many years, and they create limitations that the new collections facility aims to solve by storing Ohio historical material in a high-quality facility. Around half of the organization's collection will be moved to the new facility.
“When you start talking about history and artifacts and collection items we’re entrusted with, once those items are gone or something happens to them, they're not coming back,” Thompson said. "They're irreplaceable."
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: $17M artifacts storage center being built by Ohio History Connection
