A scaled-down version of the Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity in downtown Orlando has the funding it needs to begin construction later this year with plans to open in January 2028.
Through gifts, pledges and government support, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida in Maitland has about $44 million of the $63 million it needs to build, operate and endow the new museum, according to a statement issued Monday.
It's enough to get things started with a new design using and expanding the former Orlando Chamber of Commerce building at 75 S. Ivanhoe Blvd. A previous design for a larger building there would have cost more than $100 million, Holocaust Center board chairman Ron Shirtzer said.
"As some projects do, you sort of, you know, lose the forest for the trees," Shirtzer added. "And so the purpose of our organization is not to have some iconic edifice to, you know, attract people just because of the architecture. ... The purpose of our organization is always message driven."
He said they realized they can do that with a much smaller footprint and a much smaller price tag.
"And it really made us, to a large extent, focus back on ... why are we doing this?" he said. "What's the message, and how are we going to get that message across?"
He called the new design a “right-sized concept.” Its 25,345 square feet is still more than triple the size of the current Holocaust Center.
The museum's nontraditional approach to education will use immersive learning and first-person testimony to reach younger generations.
"The need for an awareness of the Holocaust and for utilizing the lessons of the Holocaust hasn't gone away," Shirtzer said. "If anything, it has increased dramatically."
State and local governments have provided support for the new museum, including the property downtown provided by the city of Orlando, $10 million from Orange County's Tourism Development Tax and $5 million from the state of Florida.
The new plans, designed by HuntonBrady Architects, "reimagines" the existing building and adds adjoining new construction to house the museum's core exhibit, according the news release.
In that announcement, Suzanne Grimmer, senior director of museum experiences, said the core exhibit's design will be centered on the lived experiences of those who endured the Holocaust.
"Instead of a traditional, perpetrator-focused chronology," she said, "the exhibition invites visitors to move alongside local Florida survivors and encounter events as they were experienced and understood in real time, revealing how injustice, othering, and unbelonging took hold and the role we each play in confronting them today."
