PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

A decade after the Heinz History Center added a nine-story conservation center to its campus in the Strip District, the museum is growing again.

The Pittsburgh Planning Commission has voted 8-0 to approve the demolition of four buildings behind the history center for an expansion that will add 15,000 square feet to the 275,000-square-foot complex.

The buildings, valued over $1.2 million according to the Allegheny County real estate portal, were purchased by the center beginning in 2019.

The new space would add a visitor orientation theater, exhibition space classrooms and more, says Brady Smith, chief communications officer for the center. He was unable to provide a construction timeline, but says that it, along with more details about the expansion, will be announced later this year.

“The expansion will help secure long-term sustainability for the museum and further position the History Center as a premier cultural attraction in Pittsburgh,” he wrote in a statement.

The Heinz History Center is the oldest cultural institution in Western Pennsylvania, rooting back to its founders, the Old Residents of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, in 1879. It became the largest history museum in Pennsylvania in 2004 when it opened the Smithsonian wing, which houses the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, the Mueller Education Center, the Special Collections Gallery and the McGuinn Gallery for traveling exhibitions.

And, this year, for the second time in a row, the history museum was recognized by the readers of USA Today as the No. 1 history museum in America.

The center’s last expansion took place in 2014 with the opening of the Museum Conservation Center right behind the museum on Penn Avenue. That nine-story addition houses the museum’s artifacts under one roof with Smithsonian-quality storage, according to its website.