MOSH Reveals New Renderings for Its Northbank Museum

The Museum of Science & History released new exterior renderings on September 1, 2026. They mark 60% completion of design schematics for its future home on Downtown Jacksonville's Northbank. The 125,000-square-foot building will rise five stories in the Shipyards along East Bay Street. Plans include 10 exhibits, a cafe, and a groundbreaking expected in early 2027.

MOSH closed its Southbank doors on September 1, 2025. It waited exactly one year, to the day, before reminding Jacksonville it still exists.

What the Renderings Show

The new building is wrapped in a metal skin punched with thousands of tiny holes. It's the kind of pattern that barely registers until the light hits it right.

A glass box juts out near the top, with a wood ceiling and warm lighting visible through the windows. A rooftop terrace looks out over the river.

The ground floor opens up into a glass storefront under a wood canopy. Outside, the landscaping leans into the site itself: native marsh grass, wood benches, and a play structure for kids. It's built from raw timber, not the usual primary-color plastic.

That's a 125,000-square-foot building across five stories, roughly 62% bigger than the 77,000-square-foot Museum Circle building it replaces. Inside, MOSH plans 10 exhibits spanning 50,000 square feet, a cafe, and dedicated space for community programming.

Where the New Museum Is Going

The new site sits on 2.5 acres in the Shipyards, right where Hogans Creek meets the St. Johns River. If you need a mental map, it's:

• South of VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena and VyStar Ballpark
• Near EverBank Stadium's Lot X
• Across the street from Intuition Ale Works
• Next door to Pier 1, home of the USS Orleck naval museum

Groundbreaking day drink recommendations basically write themselves.

The Northbank Riverwalk will extend right through the site, and the city is funding the roadway, utility, and park work around it. MOSH isn't the only new landmark rising along the water this year either. The Southbank got its own new icon this summer with The Rising Pearl sculpture.

Who's Designing It

MOSH picked SmithGroup to lead the design. The firm regularly lands on Building Design and Construction's list of top museum architecture firms in the country. Their past work includes:

• The National Museum of African American History & Culture
• The Franklin Institute
• The Wisconsin History Center
• The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

That's the kind of resume a city points to when it wants a building that matters, not just one that fits in.

Lauren Baker, who chairs the Museum's Design Committee, called the project a chance to build "a landmark destination along Jacksonville's riverfront." Lead designer Monteil Crawley kept it simple: the city has an emerging skyline. This building is meant to help tell its story.

Timeline: What Happens Next

The renderings are now in front of the Downtown Investment Authority for review. Once that clears, the design team finishes the construction documents.

Those are the detailed drawings that turn a rendering into something a crew can build from. That work is expected to wrap later this year.

Groundbreaking is targeted for early 2027. Earlier plans had pointed to sometime in 2026, which puts MOSH in good company. Downtown Jacksonville megaprojects have a habit of finding an extra year somewhere between the announcement and the dirt-moving.

MOSH has raised more than $95 million in private donations toward the build so far. The museum has been closed to the public since last September.

Current estimates put the reopening around 2028. A project this size tends to keep its own schedule though.

If you haven't made it to MOSH before, it's still on our running list of Jacksonville museums worth knowing about. And if you want to hold onto the current skyline before it changes again, our Jacksonville Landmarks collection isn't going anywhere.

Right now, the old building is a demolition site and the new one is still just pixels on a screen. The next real milestone is finished construction documents, due by the end of the year. After that comes the part everyone's waiting on: shovels in the ground.

We'll have the next batch of renderings up the moment MOSH makes them public. Bookmark the Jax Humor news page if you don't want to wait on us to remember.