Cultural Connections

Dana Conners (from left), director of the New Hanover County Public Library, and Kate Baillon, director of the Cape Fear Museum, stand in the Grace Street building that will house both the library and the museum downtown.

Check it out: On Oct. 6, New Hanover County’s Project Grace celebrated a major milestone.

The day marked the completion of the facility that will hold the main branch of the New Hanover County Public Library and the Cape Fear Museum, with officials holding a ceremony to mark the opening of the library portion.

Is the hybrid learning location a first?

“There are some museums, especially historical museums, that are managed by libraries across the country, but they’re not all necessarily co-located,” Dana Conners, director of the library system, said. “So to have that combination of a library in the same building and the science aspect, we’re one of the few in the United States.”

She added in playful boast: “And the best, just so we’re clear.”

At the 95,000-square-foot Grace Street building, floor-to-ceiling windows allow for an abundance of natural light.

“The windows have fritting,” Conners said. “It’s lines, to keep the birds from flying in, to reduce a little bit of the solar heat coming in, but most importantly, or more excitingly, to look like the pages of a book across the front of the library.”

The former N.C. Public Library Director of the Year, whose career experience spans libraries throughout the state as well as the Austin Public Library in Texas, is joined in the collaboration by Kate Baillon, the museum’s director. Museum officials appointed Baillon museum director in October 2023 after she previously managed collections and exhibitions. Before coming to the Cape Fear Museum, she served as an independent consultant to nonprofits and artists and was affiliated with the Levine Museum of the New South and the Joie Lassiter Gallery.

Baillon said the pairing of the Smithsonian affiliate’s physical space with the library was a natural progression.

“Dana and I do a lot of programs together and do outreach events together anyway,” Baillon said. “This will just mean that we’re able to do more of that in the same location.”

Think buses full of school children visiting based on topics they’re learning, such as the ecological history of the Cape Fear region. Visitors can enjoy an interactive exhibit in the museum. Then, in just a few more steps, they can explore the library’s archive of research materials.

The adjoining museum space adds to Cape Fear Museum’s footprint, rather than replacing its previous location. Plans for the new space include a 60-seat planetarium, interactive displays featuring hands-on science and up-close local history and a climbing area and outdoor learning gallery.

“We’re basically doubling our exhibit space moving downtown, and we are tripling our education space,” Baillon said.

Display construction and the methodical installation of 400 artifacts will take another 10 months. That includes the replica skeleton of a giant ground sloth that inhabited the Cape Fear region more than a million years ago.

The replica “will not be going on a flatbed, which would be very fun but not safe,” Baillon said.  “This is part of why we’re opening that much later. All the exhibits have to be built in place.”

“I always joke, from my point of view, I want everything on wheels and as flexible as possible so it can move around, and as much light as possible,” Conners added. “Whereas a museum needs things a little dimmer and more tied down. So in some ways, we’re very similar, and in other ways, it’s opposite demands.”

Even with guaranteed county funding, the museum raised more than $1 million in community support, county officials said.

The museum’s ticket prices for residents of $8 for adults and $5 for children will not go up as a result of the new facility.

“When we embarked (on Project Grace), the county was very clear that this project would not result in any increased fees or taxes for New Hanover County residents,” Baillon said.

Project Grace, a partnership between the private, Wilmington-based development company Cape Fear Development and New Hanover County, has a $77 million budget. The architect is LS3P, and the general contractor is Monteith Construction. The finishing touches, in particular to ensure a top-tier museum, are $21.5 million of the total. The next phase is set to include some private use by Cape Fear Development, such as a mix of residential and commercial space, on the site of the old library.

That will take several years. For now, though, the library’s doors are open.

“We had probably 300 or 400 people waiting to get in who were so excited to see the library,” Conners said about the opening day. “They were lined up all the way down the sidewalk to the road. And they just came in so impressed. They’ve been waiting a long time on this library, and I think it met everybody’s expectations.”

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

Want more WILMA? Click here to sign up for our WILMA newsletters and announcements.