New Brunswick Museum halfway to $35-million fundraising goal

The New Brunswick museum project has secured $35 million.

The New Brunswick Museum is more than halfway to its capital fundraising goal for a revamped building in Saint John, opening in 2028.

The museum’s board says its ‘Making History Now’ capital campaign has secured $19.5 million in pledges and public commitments toward its goal of $35 million.

Work to restore the original New Brunswick Museum building (which opened in 1934) began in August 2024.

The museum launched its ‘Making History Now’ capital campaign in 2025.

“We’re very confident in the number and confident we can achieve it,” says Tracy Clinch, chair of the New Brunswick Museum’s board of directors.

The New Brunswick government previously announced $58 million for the project, while the federal government has confirmed $49.9 million.

In January, Irving Oil announced it would contribute $1.5 million to the campaign.

The museum’s board has launched a sponsorship program for seats in what will be the building’s new auditorium.

“There will be a QR code on each of the seats and those QR codes will then lead to the story that person wants to tell,” says Clinch.

When completed, the expanded New Brunswick Museum at 277 Douglas Avenue will include 134,000 square feet of gallery, exhibition spaces and a rooftop terrace.

“We’re nearing 10 per cent completion of construction and we have 15 per cent of the total tenders needed for the project that have actually been awarded,” says Brent Suttie, the museum’s chief operating officer. “There’s going to be a large amount of tenders that are issued for construction over the next three to four months. Then we’ll start seeing some rapid changes on site. Right now, all the site preparation has happened.”

The museum closed its public exhibition space at Market Square in Saint John in 2020, leaving the facility altogether in 2022.

In December 2023, a new research and collections facility opened on Lancaster Avenue to store museum artifacts during construction.

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