Associated Press

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The sinkhole that swallowed up eight cars at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green will be partially filled in with plans for a bridge built over the top of the section left open.

National Corvette Museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli said the facility will keep a 25-by-45-foot section that’s about 30 feet deep with a bridge over it as a tourist attraction.

Frassinelli said officials wanted to leave the Skydome room as is, for people attending their 20th anniversary celebration at the end of the month.

The sinkhole in February did more than $1 million in damage to cars that fell on rocks. The cars were eventually pulled out of the hole.

The Skydome area will close in September, so repairs can begin.

While the sinkhole was destructive, it also led to a large increase in attendance at the museum.

Initially, officials set up a webcam that let people follow the painstaking work to retrieve the fallen cars and reinforce the area around the sinkhole. Museum visitors got a direct glimpse from a distance, behind plexiglass. Later, the museum gave tourists a much closer look at the hole.