(The following is a transcription of the broadcast story, with additional details added for web)
After a dozen years of fundraising and planning, De Pere's history museum is getting a $5.3 million facelift.
It's been more than a decade in the making, but ground was broken Wednesday on the new De Pere Historical Society museum on Broadway. The current museum is only around 1,000 square feet, while the new one, now on the way, is planned to be around 6,000 feet.
Check out how the building looks now, and how it will look after the upgrades, in our full broadcast story:
All that remains in the old building are a few artifacts, and signatures on the wall.
"We've gotten to the point within the existing building where, obviously it was not meeting the needs of the society today, much less any time in the future," historical society president McKim Boyd. "So it's very exciting to finally get to this point."
McKim Boyd and the Society has been working to raise the millions needed for the project since the early 2010s, and now finally has enough money to break ground.
He and his brother — De Pere Mayor James Boyd — says the new space is a long time coming.
"It'll be the start of the Broadway corridor, as we call it, and it's going to be a showcase," Mayor Boyd said at Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony. "And it's going to be a building that's going to be the envy of the rest of Wisconsin."
Unlike the current space, the new version has enough room to host lectures and field trips.
The new building will sit on the same site, at 403 N. Broadway Avenue, near where visitors can also visit the locks on the Fox River.
"When school groups do come, they can make a half a day or a full day out of coming to De Pere," McKim Boyd said. We are talking about the history of De Pere, but it's also the history of the greater Fox River Valley."
The original building will soon be restored to its past state, encased in glass, and expanded.
Curator Amanda Reif says the museum's full collection can now be under one roof.
"It will just be nice to be able to get everything preserved," Reif said, "and bring the structure — the 1838 structure — [and] get it preserved and brought back, and basically highlighted and preserved for generations to come."
Currently, the Historical Society's collection of key De Pere people, places, and events is scattered across multiple storage sites.
"It was difficult, if not impossible, to get to some of the items that were there," Boyd said. "So this will lend itself to a lot more displays and a lot more sharing of that which we have."
About $4.6 million of the $5.3 million needed for the project has been raised, and Boyd says he's confident in the fundraising efforts to get the remaining money.
