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$20.3M museum upgrade begins
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · January 15, 2025
After more than four years of fundraising by the Hoover Presidential Foundation, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum will close on Monday for a $20.3 million renovation project.
The museum will close for about 18 months to undergo the first major renovation since 1992 with plans to reopen in the summer of 2026.
Foundation President Mundi McCarty called this “a very exciting point in the organization’s history and the future of the museum.”
“The last renovation happened over 30 years ago, so it’s very significant and should be celebrated,” she said. “We’re excited to move ahead.”
The renovation will include adding a 2,200-square-foot addition to the main lobby and gift shop, a new facade, and “an immersive experience for visitors of all ages to learn and understand the stories of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover in new, engaging ways,” read a museum press release.
Last summer, the Foundation predicted the closure begin in the first quarter of 2025. McCarty said the Foundation met Friday afternoon with engineers and contractors to finalize details before announcing the Jan. 20 closure.
Museum Director Thomas Schwartz called the project “a new vision.”
He recalled that when he took the position in 2011, he only planned to stay for 10 years. But the Foundation “reignited” the project in 2020, though the coronavirus pandemic slowed initial efforts.
“The year I was to retire, they wanted to move forward with the fundraising,” he said, and that served as an incentive for him to stay.
He will turn 70 in March.
“The time for talking about it is over … now its the actual realization,” he said. “There’s a lot of moving parts and the Foundation has done a terrific job of raising the $20.3 million.”
West Branch Mayor Roger Laughlin call the start of the work “great.”
“This is a major renovation and it’s sorely needed,” he said. “It will update and modify the displays … and will be a better overall museum experience for everyone.”
Main Street West Branch Executive Director Jessi Simon said the economic development group looks forward to the finished improvements.
“The renovation of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library & Museum is an exciting step forward in better celebrating the life and legacy of President Hoover, and we look forward to the economic boost its reopening will bring,” she wrote in a statement. “In the meantime, the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site remains open to welcome visitors, and our thriving Main Street district is full of small businesses, unique charm, and fascinating history. There’s still plenty to eat, shop, and explore in historic West Branch while the museum is under construction!”
The Foundation hired Macomas-Lacina Construction of Iowa City as the general contractor. BRC Imagination Arts of Burbank, Calif., serves as the concept design firm. Shive-Hattery of Iowa City provides architectural and engineering services.
Schwartz said BRC designed a “great narrative” and is finalizing the designs for the exhibits. NARA approved Shive-Hattery’s expansion and renovation plans, he added.
“We’re not at the point of no return,” Schwartz said.
After Monday’s closure, the museum’s curatorial team will begin removing the artifacts and “white figures” and disassembling the exhibits. One of the bigger items is the multi-ton piece of the Berlin Wall, Schwartz said.
Staff will also remove merchandise and casework from the gift shop. To save money, some of these items will be reused.
Schwartz noted that the current gallery includes two depictions of Hoover taking part in his favorite pastime, fishing. A young Hoover appears at the beginning of the walk-through, and an older version at the end. He said visitors like that analogy, so it may return in some form.
The floor in the rotunda will remain, the director said, but rather than a singular path through the exhibits, the new museum will offer two paths.
One path follows Hoover’s birth up to World War I. The second begins with the creation of the Commission for the Relief in Belgium to Hoover’s death in 1964.
Part of the reason for creating two paths is to better handle large groups, especially schoolchildren, by dividing them in two. Schwartz said school groups already get broken up to separately tour the park and museum.
“With the addition, we will create a plaza outside to allow the buses to unload, then (separate the group between) park rangers (and museum staff). We can do orientation when there is good weather outside,” he said. “The current lobby gets crowded when we get two to three school buses with kids.”
If things go as planned, Schwartz said contractors will open up the front of the museum in mid-February for the addition.
In a museum press release, the director said the project will also allow the storytelling to inject newer information from scholarly research “to bolster the visitor experience.”
“Our role at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is to protect and maintain the records and stories of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover,” Schwartz said in a statement. “This initiative is not a rewriting of history; it is an opportunity to update and refresh how moments in history came to be throughout the lives of the Hoovers, and through their continued legacy.”
McCarty said the Foundation will meet with the construction crew biweekly to review the progress. The Foundation will also continue to collaborate with museum Schwartz as well as Herbert Hoover National Historic Site Superintendent Pete Swisher. The museum is owned by the National Archives and Records Administration, but the grounds around the building – including the area planned for the addition – are owned by the National Park Service.
Of the $20.3 million goal, the Foundation raised $18.6 million as of Monday’s announcement. The largest donation came in the form of a $5 million Designation Iowa grant, which gave the non-profit group until Dec. 31, 2024, to commit the money to a construction contract.
The Foundation will “have options in place” to raise the remaining $1.7 million, McCarty said, meaning they will not need to trim the project.
“We’ll get there within months and it won’t hinder the beginning phases,” she said.
Schwartz said the museum and Hoover Park staff plan to place video cameras around the site so folks can follow the construction. Once in place, the feed will appear on the museum’s website, hoover.archives.gov/museum-renovation-news.
“We want people to stay involved, to get excited about the whole process and the eventual reopening in the summer of 2026,” the director said.
The museum draws tourists that oftentimes result in foot traffic to many downtown businesses. Laughlin said that will be hard, but the finished museum will benefit the community in the long run.
“We’ll suffer through it and we’ll survive,” he said. “The Hoover Foundation worked really hard – extremely hard – on fundraising. The Foundation is a big asset to our community and making it work.”
MSWB in October landed a $30,000 grant to fund its Rising Tide Initiative that will, in part, help promote small businesses that may see a downturn in foot traffic during the museum’s closure.
Though the work will close the museum, the library and research room will remain open, though the museum encourages making appointments by emailing hoover.library@nara.gov, calling 319-643-5301, or writing.
In a press release, the museum emphasized that Hoover Park remains open.
The Foundation began quietly raising money in 2020. They later created the Timeless Values | Modern Experience campaign and formed a committee chaired by Herbert Hoover’s great-granddaughter, Margaret Hoover, and former Iowa governor and ambassador to China, Terry Branstad. Allan Hoover III, a great-grandson of the 31st president and Foundation trustee, as well as former Sen. Robert “Bob” Dvorsky were among the most recognizable names on that committee. That committee met for the first time on Hoover’s 147th birthday, on Aug. 10, 2021.
The committee then went public and in April 2022 hosted a fundraising kickoff to announce it had already raised $4.17 million in pledges. That number rose to $18.6 million at the time of Monday’s announcement.
The Foundation also enlisted several Honorary Campaign Members who lent their notoriety to the fundraising effort. Among those were former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, Voice of the Hawkeyes Gary Dolphin, Hawkeyes Football Coach Kirk Ferentz, author Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice, and Sen. Charles Grassley.
The Foundation hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking on Hoover’s 150th birthday on Aug. 10, 2024. Should construction go as planned, the museum plans to reopen near Hoover’s 152nd birthday on Aug. 10, 2026.
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