Textile Museum to Expand

The Textile Museum, which has been tucked away in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood for more than 80 years, is adding a second location, in the bustling Penn Quarter area.

Museum officials announced yesterday that early next year they will open an exhibition space on three floors of a historic building owned by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on Seventh Street NW.

The move more than doubles the space of the original museum, now occupying two houses on S Street NW, and gives it a prominent location in the expanding arts corridor near the Shakespeare and Woolly Mammoth theaters and the Smithsonian's two museums in the Old Patent Office Building.

The decision to expand was years in the making. "The Textile Museum has recognized for a long time, dating back to the 1970s, that it needed to do something with its facilities. It has looked at many plans that didn't come to fruition," said Bruce P. Baganz, a Houston-based businessman who is president of the museum's board of trustees.

Earlier this year, the board decided that the high-profile Penn Quarter would work for the museum's specialized collection by taking advantage of the crowds that fill the area's popular restaurants and visit the International Spy Museum and Verizon Center.

On Seventh Street the museum will present exhibitions from its 18,000-piece collection, as well as temporary shows, talks and other special events, and expand its gift shop. The original buildings, one designed by John Russell Pope, will be used for exhibitions, the research library, administrative and curatorial offices and storage.

In an average year 25,000 to 30,000 people have visited the S Street location. "The street had virtually no foot traffic," said Baganz. "It is important to us to get our visitorship up, to broaden our audience and find our next generation of audiences."

It will take approximately $14 million to transform the Penn Quarter site into a museum and operate it for the first five years, he said. The S Street museum has a suggested donation of $5, but the board hasn't decided about a fee for the new space.

McInturff Architects, an award-winning Bethesda firm that designed the new Woolly Mammoth home, is undertaking the conversion of the Odd Fellows building.