Officials in northern Alberta are celebrating the final step in the creation of a new museum, just for dinosaurs.
The County of Grande Prairie announced Monday that approval had been given for construction of the Philip J. Currie museum to begin.
On December 6, the county gave approval for the museum to go to tender in January.
The approval came after the county put another $3 million toward the project – bringing their total contribution to $7,096,000.
The capital fund for the project totals $19,478,000 – with the City of Grande Prairie putting $3.5 million into the project’s capital fund, and the Municipal District of Greenview putting forward $250,000.
The project is 10 years in the making – and has had a team of five people working on it full-time for the last 2.5 years.
PCL Construction, the museum’s construction management firm and Teeple Architects have begun work on the tendering process and the building has been completely designed.
The building will include exhibition space for dinosaur skeletons, classrooms and a theatre.
The county said $7 million still needs to be raised for the project.
Officials have launched a naming sponsorship program, which will give donors a chance to have their name attached to a number of components of the facility; in addition, a crowd-funding campaign is also underway online - $25,000 has already been raised through that campaign.
Ground is expected to be broken on the project in April 2013, and the museum is slated to open in June 2014.
