SALEM — The Peabody Essex Museum is moving ahead with its plan for a downtown expansion, and will appear before the city Historical Commission Wednesday night as it seeks design approval for its $49 million project, set to begin construction in November.
The museum is currently before the Design Review Board, as well.
The plans show a new, three-story wing, glass atrium and adjacent garden, but the details of those additions are still coming together, according to Bob Monk, the museum's director of facilities.
The addition will be built next to the East India Marine Hall building, in what is now the Japanese garden and in museum space to the rear of that.
"One of our main goals is to accentuate and make East India Marine Hall the forefront of our campus here," Monk said. "It's the museum's birthplace, its roots, and it's an architectural gem. We really want to take the opportunity to reveal East India Marine Hall and showcase it."
The new wing will be three stories high, with about 5,000 square feet of gallery space on each floor, according to Monk. A new outdoor garden also will have about 5,000 square feet of space.
The expansion was announced last July, a reboot of what was once a much larger project that had already been in the works. That plan came apart close to three years ago following the death of the project's architect, Rick Mather.
Though the project has a long history behind it, it has as much of one ahead of it as well.
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