African American Museum will move to former Family Court building on Ben Franklin Parkway

Four development teams have been shortlisted to submit request for proposals for the historic building.

by Ximena Conde

The classically styled former Family Court building on the Ben Franklin Parkway has its first tenant lined up for its redevelopment: the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

City officials announced Thursday that the museum will move into the 1801 Vine St. property after it is revamped.

“We’re excited that it will be where it belongs on the Parkway, where literally tens, hundreds of thousands of people traverse on a[n] … annual basis, every year,” said City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, a major proponent of the move. “Everybody knows where the park is, so it’s befitting that the African American Museum is here.”

Ashley Jordan, president of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, said she imagines a “state-of-the-art blockbuster museum” with a theater and a cafe. The move would give the museum almost three times the space it currently has, which Jordan hopes will help the museum beat its current annual attendance of about80,000 people and make it more competitive with institutions like the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

Carrying out that vision, however, will require years of fund-raising, which she felt optimistic about.