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Copyright © 2018 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE – Denver, Las Vegas, Nev., and now the nation’s capital.

Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf announced Tuesday that it will create a permanent exhibition in Washington, D.C. The three-story, 75,000-square-foot installation will open in 2022.

The burgeoning arts enterprise’s latest expansion exhibit, which will be sited in the Fort Totten neighborhood of the nation’s capital, is to be part of a development by the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

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Meow Wolf will be an anchor tenant, according to spokesperson John Feins. The Cafritz Foundation, a D.C.-based grant-giving organization, funds projects in several interest areas, including the arts, community services and the environment.

Meow Wolf has an agreement in place with the foundation, but Feins said major details about the project, including building renderings and costs, won’t be unveiled until next year. He said the foundation will cover the cost of “most of the development.”

“It’s a preliminary announcement just to let everyone know we’re excited, thrilled and it’s happening,” Feins said.

The D.C. installation will feature a new narrative, according to the announcement. Meow Wolf’s interactive House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe has a mysterious story line about a family that visitors can follow through clues within the installation’s variety of unusual rooms and spaces.

“Washington, D.C. is an international cultural powerhouse and an ideal setting for the evolving Meow Wolf story universe that began with House Of Eternal Return,” Meow Wolf CEO Vince Kadlubek said in a statement. “Our intergalactic, transmedia story is rooted in a community of underdogs who overcome ‘The Powers That Be,’ and we will have something really special for all the fellow underdogs who seek a transformative experience when we unveil the D.C. chapter.”

According to Feins, representatives from the Cafrtiz Foundation visited the House of Eternal Return earlier this year and invited Meow Wolf to work with the foundation on its vision for “arts that benefit community.” He said the timeline for a grand opening, about two years following the completion of Meow Wolf’s Denver facility, feels “totally achievable.”

“We are excited to announce this new partnership with Meow Wolf,” Jane Cafritz, a member of the Cafritz Foundation’s board, said in a statement. “Meow Wolf has grown beyond the innovative DIY art collective to a nationally renowned, immersive art experience. This opportunity will be an important addition to Washington, D.C. and the Northeast.”

This is the third new permanent installation project Meow Wolf has announced just this year. In January, the organization unveiled plans for a 90,000-square-foot facility in Denver set to open in 2020. Two weeks later, the organization announced it would open a space in Las Vegas in late 2019 inside the new AREA15 development. It also plans to debut an “artist-driven” ride at Denver’s Elitch Gardens Theme & Water Park in spring 2019.

The House of Eternal Return opened in March 2016. The facility reached 1 million visitors in July.