Madison College’s Downtown campus will be renting out space on the sixth floor to a local biotechnology museum.  The consortium, made up of retired science professors, museum experts, and entrepreneurs needed a place to gather and plan for their museum, which will be all about science and its story.

This is the first time ever that Madison College will be leasing out space in a building that it owns.

Valentina Ahedo, the interim Downtown Campus Manager, spoke to what she hopes the project will bring to the college.

“We were really, really interested, of course, in having someone here who would complement our mission.  And our mission is to open access to fantastic education,” said Ahedo.

The museum hopes to work with students and faculty to bring new opportunities to the campus.

The Animation Department will be working with them for their signage and the group hopes to collaborate with science classes to bring more hands on experiences to students.  The museum will also be looking for interns in the future as well as any students who want to help out.

Their lease will begin in March, so they are looking at a fall launch date.  The museum will be open to the public.

For the new tenants, the space was set up perfectly for what they wanted to do.  Ahedo explained that previously many science programs were housed on the sixth floor, leaving equipment and room layouts for the museum.

“So we had the x-ray room set up in one area, the radiography set up in another area, so in many ways, unbeknownst to us, the set up was actually really perfect for a science museum because many of the things that we did up there were in the sciences, they were those physical, healthcare related, hands on instructional areas,” said Ahedo.

There is more space on the fifth floor, recently vacated by the dental program when it moved into the new health building,  and the college will continue to look for new tenants for that area.