City’s Design Committee to Consider Proposed Addition to Butler Institute

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A proposed expansion to The Butler Institute of American Art would add much-needed storage space, according to Louis Zona, executive director of the museum.

Plans for the 30- by 46-foot multilevel addition were submitted to the city council’s design review committee by C. Robert Buchanan, architect for the project. The committee will consider the plan at its March 9 meeting.

Zona stressed that the expansion has not yet been approved by the Butler’s board of directors, which will meet March 12, and the location of the addition could change.

 “It’s still in the proposal stage,” Zona said, adding that the long-planned project was delayed by the pandemic.

The Butler recently acquired a large kinetic art collection from the David W. Bermant Foundation of California. Zona said that collection and other pieces would be stored in the addition.

The plan submitted for design review shows the addition jutting outward from the front of the Beecher Center on the museum’s southern side. It would be visible from Wick Avenue and would include a massive second-floor window that would allow motorists and passerby to view large art displayed behind it.

The addition would be on an existing grassy area and would not have doors to the outside. Its cost has not been disclosed.

The 19,000-square-foot Beecher Center was constructed in 2000. It houses modern and technology-based art.

The four-story addition would have 1,380 square feet on each floor, with the bottom two floors being below ground level.

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