State Museum seeks rent, staffing and capital funds to expand education wing, events and digitization

Emily Gallo, chief of staff at the South Carolina State Museum, told the Senate budget committee that the museum has multiple budget priorities tied to an opportunity to expand into the West Wing of Columbia Mills after the Department of Public Health vacates space.

Gallo described a request for supplemental rent funding to allow the museum to occupy floors 1 and 4 of the West Wing; the planned changes would add classroom space, a safer bus drop-off and a revenue-generating event venue. “Knocking through the lobby walls of the museum onto the First Floor of that West Wing would allow us to build an entire education wing,” Gallo said. She said the museum is considering six additional classrooms and a reconfigured bus drop-off to improve safety for visiting school groups.

The museum said it received an $800,000 grant from the SC250 Commission to support a 3,000-square-foot major exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and that the museum’s planetarium and outreach programming have seen growth. Gallo said the museum projects the new event space on the fourth floor could generate about $600,000 annually from premier wedding and conference rentals, pending successful build-out and management. “I believe the projection of what we could make in that event space alone would be about $600,000, just for premier wedding rentals and large conference events,” she said.

Other priorities presented included recurring staff recruitment and retention funding (the museum said it previously received $1 million in recurring funding), upgrades for emergency public announcement and wayfinding systems (the museum requested $300,000 after recent failures during a bomb threat), additional recurring technology funding of $40,000, and a one-time $100,000 server purchase to support the digitization project. Gallo said the museum has already received nearly $1,000,000 in federal funding for digitization and an additional $250,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to digitize the natural history collection.

Gallo also walked senators through rough floor plans and described plans to connect the new event space to the observatory and an innovation wing to maximize rental and educational uses. Commissioners asked follow-up questions about visitation growth and staffing. The presentation included examples of recent acquisitions brought to the committee and closed after senators’ questions; no appropriation vote was held during the hearing segment.