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Planned T-Rex Science Center is taking shape in Charleston

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A sign hanging outside the former Purity Baking Company building on Charleston’s West Side promises that “coming soon” the site just off Interstate 64 will be home to the T-Rex Science Center, a world-class exhibit and learning space.

“We’ve jumped in with both feet,” said Scott Breeden, director of the T-Rex Science Center, after a Monday groundbreaking ceremony for the estimated $5 million project.

“We’re bound and determined to make it happen for Charleston.”

The T-Rex Science Center is envisioned as a place to “do” science, not just “view” science.

Inspiration for it came after Breeden, a 3rd generation stone mason, found a fossil last fall.

With the help of Ray Garton, curator for the West Virginia Geological Survey, the fossil was identified as a prehistoric tree dating back 400 million years.

At one point during the identification process, Breeden visited a small-scale dinosaur exhibit Garton regularly sets up in Harrison County.

At that point, Breeden said he’d had an option to buy the former Purity building property for several years.

“I’m a firm believer in it. I think something needed to be here,” he said.

After talking with Garton, “It just made sense. Ray had a lot of things in storage that nobody gets to see and, he said, ‘You know, I need a building and I need a big building and I’d like for it to be in Charleston.’ It just all fell into place at that time,” Breeden said.

In addition to other partners, the two brought in Robert Strong, a science center educator and director of Wheeling’s SMARTCenter — standing for Science, Math, Art, Research and Technology.

He’d been working on science center plans for more than two decades since opening the SMARTCenter in 1994.

“There are places similar to this, but there’s no place like this. It’s really awesome,” Strong told MetroNews while standing next to layouts for the T-Rex Science Center.

When it’s finished, “You can do real science here.”

The site has been designed as a science center for kids of all sizes and ages.

Plans call for the building to house a prehistoric walk, at least 18 full dinosaur replicas, active and interactive science space for students and scientists, an arcade, a theater with seats for more than 400, classrooms and hundreds of fossils, including many now housed elsewhere.

“In order to be scientifically valid if you name a new species, that specimen has to be available someplace recognized that another researcher can come in and study it, so you can’t name a new species and then put it on your shelf at home,” Garton explained.

“It has to go into a museum setting someplace and (currently) we don’t have anything like that (in West Virginia).”

As of Monday’s groundbreaking, the goal was to open the T-Rex Science Center at 1007 Bigley Avenue in Charleston by August.

Garton, though, said that would depend on securing necessary funding for needed building improvements.

Breeden was optimistic about the target opening date and the potential for the site.

“Children that possibly would never get the chance to visit the Smithsonian or something are now going to see those types of exhibits right here in Charleston,” he said.

In addition to West Virginia students, Strong said the center could draw people from all parts of the United States and the world.

“This is important,” Strong said. “This has to happen.”





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