An artist’s rendering of what the East Tennessee Technology Park could look like after cleanup and historic preservation activities are completed. (Image courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy/UCOR)
The pre-qualification window for companies to bid on the professional site design for a museum at the East Tennessee Technology Park closed in February. Eight firms that specialize in museum planning and exhibit design responded to the pre-qualification request.
Planning for the museum is one of several activities under way to commemorate ETTP’s history, including a history center located on the second floor of the Oak Ridge Fire Station and an observation tower overlooking the K-25 Building footprint.
The museum will house artifact and historic materials removed from the K-25 Building, which was built during World War II as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project, a federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons. The building and ETTP, often referred to as the K-25 site, were also used to enrich uranium after the war.
The site was shut down in the mid-1980s, and it is slowly being converted into a massive industrial park.
Planning is under way to remove and store equipment from K-27 before it is demolished.
A pre-qualification request has just been issued for a K-25 virtual museum, which will consist of a website to allow people to further explore the building and its rich history. It will include an interactive map so people can see what went on at the site.
Note: This is an edited version of a story that first appeared in the March 2013 issue of Public Involvement News, published by the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office.
Jason Allison says
What we need is a museum that better documents the residents, their land and what they had to give up to give way for our government. We have very limited exposure to the civilian side of OR. There is a rich history outside of the government.