MOSH recently declared that they will be shutting down their Southbank location permanently in September, three years ahead of the opening of their new site.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Earlier this month, Jacksonville’s Museum of Science and History (MOSH) announced plans to have their new facility on the city’s Northbank ready by 2028. However, this announcement also included the news that they will permanently close the Southbank site by Labor Day.
MOSH plans to start construction on their new facility next year.
“At some point, you have to let go of the old in order to create the new,” MOSH CEO Allistair Dove shared with First Coast News. “So, I think what’s surprising to people is perhaps the timeline here.”
Closing their current location as their new one is being built across the St. Johns River is what makes sense to focus on investing into their new space, Dove said.
“We’ve thought long and hard about what are the right ways to manage a transition like that,” Dove said. “We’ve analyzed it from our mission perspective and from a financial perspective, and we feel really confident that September is the right time to make the bold move and go all in on the new museum’s creation.”
Although confident and excited about their strategy to move to the sports complex, Dove expressed that there are challenges that come with building a new museum and moving across the river.
Dove said MOSH’s capital campaign for fundraising has given them enough money to start construction in 2026. But, there are many more costs that are involved before they open their new doors officially, which played a large role in the decision to close their doors after this summer.
“What we’re doing is a little bit unusual,” Dove said. “Often times, museums will rebuild in the same location, or you’ll be starting a new build from scratch. What’s a bit unusual about our situation is closing a museum in one location while building a museum in another location. So, that’s just quite unique and among museum builds.”
Although MOSH has collected enough donations and grants from the state and city to officially start construction next year, the museum still needs more money to fund its new exhibits at the new location.
“We are going to start over from scratch,” Dove said. “There will be elements that we bring with us from the current museum, but what we really would like to do is tell a single cohesive story about the history of our region, from dinosaur times to the present, and then to ask people to speculate about what the potential of this region could be in the future.”
Despite not having a physical location for the next three years, MOSH said that they’ll still be educating the community through pop-ups and mobile exhibits to classrooms and other places in Jacksonville.
But, MOSH is more than a museum; it also serves as a venue for several nonprofits in the River City. Dove said although the nonprofits won’t be able to hold their events at the museum for the next three years, the museum is brainstorming on supporting them in other ways.
MOSH’s official closing date is Sept. 1. They will be running all of their annual summer programs as the San Marco location’s grand finale.
