DE PERE - Just days after suffering a major setback to its downtown in a structural fire, De Pere learned it will be the recipient of a $50 million cultural center scarcely 100 yards away.

The Mulva Cultural Center will be a glass-encased showroom for traveling cultural exhibits and activities in 60,000 square feet of space that will serve, in the words of architect Scott Duncan, “as De Pere’s living room.”

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the world’s largest architectural firms and famous for building the John Hancock Center among others, will design and build the project.

The city plans to donate the city-block of space for the building, but design, construction, maintenance, and operations will be paid for entirely by Jim and Miriam Mulva and their foundation.

“Nothing that we’re doing with this center is dependent on financial support either by sponsors or by the city,” Jim Mulva said. “For people to attend and see the exhibits will be essentially no or nominal costs.”

SOM provided initial renderings Wednesday of a three-story, all-glass structure.

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“The key concepts … centered around two themes,” Duncan said. “The first is about activity, the changing exhibitions, the nature of the kinds of performances or meetings or events that’ll happen here that will bring vibrancy and activity to De Pere …

“The second is transparency: We wanted to make that activity immediately apparent to people who were just driving by, coming to De Pere for the first time, that the activity inside of the building by way of the architecture would be made visible.”

The Mulvas envision hosting traveling exhibits about dinosaurs, 101 inventions that changed the world, the Titanic, the Civil War, antique cars shows and other exhibits like those they’ve seen in New York, or that have visited Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago.

The Mulvas hope to fill the space with multiple small exhibits or one very large exhibit, things that will stay for up to three or four months. SOM’s architects and designers and the Mulvas are working with consultants to make sure the structure provides the kinds of environment, lighting, temperature, and humidity that are required before the place can qualify for some of the exhibits.

In addition to the exhibit space, the building will have classrooms, a café, meeting rooms and a 200-seat auditorium for concerts, presentations, poetry readings and other events.

De Pere Mayor Mike Walsh called it a world-class project that he predicted would “both inspire and transform our region culturally and artistically for generations to come.”

Such a project will only enhance what is being done at other cultural attractions throughout the county, such as the Neville Museum, Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach said.

“It’s a game changer for the city of De Pere, a game changer for Northeastern Wisconsin,” Streckenbach said.

He and Walsh had high praise for the Mulvas, who spent their formative years in De Pere before moving to Texas, where Jim Mulva made his fortune as president and CEO of ConocoPhillips. Upon his retirement four years ago, they returned to De Pere, where they built a home.

“Your roots do pull on you,” Jim Mulva said.

This project is a way of giving back to the community, he and Miriam said.

The building remains very much in the planning stages. The Mulvas intend to present the city with a formal, detailed plan a year from now, with construction to begin in the spring and summer of 2020. The building would become operational in 2022.

The De Pere council has not yet decided to donate the land for the project, but Walsh said he anticipates no problems.

The site, southeast of the Wisconsin Street and South Broadway roundabout, overlooks the Fox River. It is about a block from the site where a fire last week took down Ogan Restaurant, an adjoining health center and apartments.

For information about the Mulva Cultural Center and more drawings, visit mulvaculturalcenter.com.