ALISO VIEJO : Museum Will Move to Industrial Park

After a three-year search, the Museum of Natural History and Science has found a new interim site in an industrial park about a mile from its proposed permanent location in Aliso/Wood Canyons Regional Park.

A former elementary school in Newport Beach that has served as the museum’s home for five years will close July 31 in preparation for the move. Museum officials hope the new site, in the Koll Corporate Center in Aliso Viejo, will be open by late fall.

The new building contains about 31,645 square feet. About 14,000 square feet will serve as exhibit space, with 6,000 square feet for collections and a research lab and the remaining 12,000 square feet for administrative offices, meeting rooms and a museum store.

Exhibit space will include robotic dinosaur displays and space equipment mock-ups as well as local fossils and Indian artifacts. The museum has one of the largest marine-mammal fossil collections in the nation. Museum officials hope to continue and perhaps expand their use of space for fossil and artifact storage at the County General Services Agency yard in Santa Ana.

A permanent museum of 100,000 square feet has been proposed for a 25-acre site at Pectin Reef in Aliso/Wood Canyons Regional Park. Construction on the museum, which could cost $40 million, is at least five years away.