{"id":288491,"date":"2026-09-17T22:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288491\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T22:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:58:08","slug":"lawmaker-fights-to-keep-academy-of-natural-sciences-museum-open-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288491\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmaker fights to keep Academy of Natural Sciences Museum open \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are just days away from the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum closing for good<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sept. 27, 2026, is the last day for the museum with Drexel University pointing to declining attendance and rising operating costs which they said made operating the museum essentially unsustainable. <\/p>\n

In response, there have been been rallies outside of the building<\/a> on the Ben Franklin Parkway with families and supporters calling on the city and Drexel to find a way to keep it open.<\/p>\n

City Councilmember At-Large Dr. Nina Ahmad was among those at a rally on Sept. 17 and introduced a resolution to hold hearings on the closure. <\/p>\n

Dr. Ahmad partnered wtih also shared four possible routes that the city could take to stop the museum from closing.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday, her office wrote:<\/p>\n

“Orphans’ Court Petition: Deputy Mayor Wellenbach and the Academy of Natural Sciences Board can petition the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court under Pennsylvania Act 141 guidelines to release or modify a restriction under the following conditions: 1) a fund is older than 20 years, 2) total assets are small, 3) or the restriction has become “unlawful, impracticable, impossible to achieve, or wasteful.”<\/p>\n

Emergency Capital Grants (The Municipal Route): Because the city cannot spend Drexel\u2019s endowment, a more viable financial bridge is mobilizing capital through the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID) or requesting emergency state RACP (Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program) funds to cover the capital improvements directly. This strategy frees operational dollars, without triggering a lengthy and legally risky battle over donor intent.<\/p>\n

Explore using the approximately $3.5 million annual payout from the endowment to support a $41 million bond issue.<\/p>\n

Historic Tax Credits Program: with proper structures, Philadelphia could raise 20% of the capital costs from investor equity raised through the Historic Tax Credits program. To achieve this, the Academy would need to be placed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.”<\/p>\n

The Parker Administration told NBC10 that they have loans the deputy mayor to Drexel Universtiy and the Academy as a senior advisory to help them navigate these changes. The administration did not mention finding a potential path forward to stay open though. <\/p>\n

History of the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum<\/p>\n

The Academy was founded in 1812 by seven naturalists whose mission at the time was to advance scientific discovery. The museum then opened in 1828 as a way to share the Academy\u2019s natural history collections with the public.<\/p>\n

In 2011, the Academy became affiliated with Drexel University and changed its name from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.<\/p>\n

In October of last year,<\/a>\u00a0the museum reduced its operating hours from five days a week to Friday through Sunday. At that time, the Academy said the decision was due to visitation rates not rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, federal funding cuts and an \u201cuncertain philanthropic landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the museum’s closure, the Academy also announced that Scott Cooper, PhD, had stepped down as their president and CEO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are just days away from the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum closing for good. Sept. 27, 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-288491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}