The First Amendment Museum in Augusta will temporarily move from its home at the Gannett House at 184 State St., above, to a building downtown on Water Street. The historic Gannett House will undergo renovations, which will take about three years. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — The First Amendment Museum is moving to downtown Augusta for the next three years or so, vacating its home in the historic Gannett House to make way for renovations.

Museum leaders — including one of its founders from the Gannett family, which had a publishing empire that was also once based in downtown Augusta — said their permanent home on State Street needs renovations and they didn’t want to close the museum, so they’re moving into leased space at 191 Water St., where advocates hope it will help bring foot traffic to the city’s downtown.

The Gannett House has already closed for the renovations. Officials plan to install exhibits in the new temporary quarters over the winter, perhaps opening in the spring.

The temporary museum home will even debut some new grant-funded interactive exhibits highlighting the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and freedom to petition.

“We don’t want to be closed, especially with the state museum being closed,” said Genie Gannett, a co-founder of the First Amendment Museum with her sister, Terry Gannett Hopkins, granddaughters of Guy P. Gannett. “We’ve got these great brand-new exhibits, we’re going to have a brand-new space so let’s set up those exhibits and welcome visitors there, downtown. Augusta is our cultural capital, and we’d like to be a part of that.”

Jeremy Ashlock, executive director of the Augusta Downtown Alliance, said the museum should be a good fit, and bring additional people, both local and visitors, downtown.

“We already place significant long-term value in our downtown as a cultural hub for art and entertainment in the region, and while efforts to restore the Colonial Theater continue, the museum will be a great venue to explore and attract new folks to our downtown,” Ashlock said. “We envision folks not only visiting our downtown to explore this museum, but we believe that this museum will expand the ways existing community members, who already enjoy coming downtown, can interact with this unique and special place.

“You can come downtown for many great experiences, to enjoy award-winning food and beverage options, retail spaces, professional services, now you can also visit an experiential museum.”

Gannett said the downtown location isn’t far from the museum’s permanent home at the Gannett House, and is also close to historic Fort Western. She said other sites the group considered for the temporary quarters weren’t as accessible or visible.

Genie Gannett, co-founder of the First Amendment Museum in Augusta, leads a tour of the State Street museum July 4, 2019. The museum will move to a temporary site on Water Street for the next three years while its permanent home is renovated. Kennebec Journal photo by Joe Ph

The First Amendment Museum will take up about half of the 191 Water St. building, with Steve Smith Trial Lawyers law firm occupying the rest of the property.

Ashlock said the large building had been vacant for some time and reactivating that building means a lot for the long-term success of downtown.

Renovations at the Gannett House are expected to include new bathrooms, a stair lift, and other improvements to update, renovate and restore the building that sits prominently next to the Blaine House, the residence of Maine’s governor.

The ornate building at 184 State St. was built in 1911 by William H. Gannett, a major publisher and founder of Comfort magazine, the first American periodical to reach a circulation of 1 million, as a wedding present for his son Guy P. Gannett, founder of the Guy Gannett Publishing Company. The family’s company grew to include the Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel and Portland Press Herald newspapers as well as WGAN, which is now WGME television, and WGAN radio. The family sold the business in 1998.

The yellow stucco Mediterranean Revival building served for many years as offices for the State Planning Office before being purchased by a nonprofit organization in 2015, which turned it into the museum.

Gannett said the renovations at the Gannett House could take up to three years, at which point the museum would move back there.

The downtown building does not have its own dedicated parking lot. But Ashlock said parking shouldn’t be an issue, as there are more than 900 parking spaces in and around downtown.

The Augusta Planning Board unanimously approved of the use of the 191 Water St. site as a museum earlier this month, with board members saying the museum will be a great addition and help bring people downtown.