Faith and Liberty Discovery Center to Open in Center City

Locals and tourists of all faiths are sure to be intrigued by an upcoming project from the American Bible Society. The Faith and Liberty Discovery Center will take visitors on a tour through exhibits based around the Christian faith and the Bible. While the project is still in its earliest stages, the concept and details emerging are fascinating. The project was just announced Wednesday.

An image of the Bible.

The Discovery Center will open in the Wells Fargo building at 5th and Market Streets. The whole museum will be a whopping 40,000 square feet, with 25,000 square feet of that as exhibition space. Roy Peterson, president/CEO of the American Bible Society, told Philadelphia Magazine that the Discovery Center’s location in the City of Brotherly Love was no happy accident. To wit: “It’s no accident that we decided to build this here in Philadelphia, a city founded by William Penn, whose belief in religious freedom landed him in prison before he had the ultimate opportunity to establish this city as a beacon for the world.”

The American Bible Society now has its headquarters in Philadelphia, after being located in New York City for many years. It sold its NYC digs for $300 million two years ago. The Faith and Liberty Discovery Center is estimated to carry a $60 million price tag, which Peterson says will be raised through private funding. It’s believed that the new museum will draw a quarter-million visitors annually.

The Discovery Center is being built by Local Projects, which recently contributed to the universally-lauded 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan. In addition, says PhillyMag, “SaylorGregg, the Philadelphia-based architects that did such projects as the Franklin Institute expansion and the McNeil Avian Center at the Zoo, is doing the architectural design.”

Mayor Jim Kenney expressed enthusiasm for the project, saying that he thought it would draw people of all faiths. “Because there are so many faiths, so many ethnicities, so many experiences that are based in the Old Testament, I can see people from other countries really wanting to come here and experience this wonderful experience,” he said.