In a sign that its reopening isn’t far off, the Michigan Science Center (formerly known as the Detroit Science Center) is hiring new staff.

The center has created a temporary website at www.michigansciencecenter.net/ and has posted several open positions: an events and group sales coordinator, a visitor service and sales coordinator, a visitor service representative and a volunteer coordinator.

When the center closed late in September 2011 over financial issues, it laid off 100 people. The organization let its last five employees go in January of this year after cash ran out.

But it’s unclear how many people the center would need to fully restaff, given that it’s streamlined operations and isn’t expected to reopen its former exhibit-building subsidiary, DSC Design & Exhibits.

The Michigan Science Center’s board of directors is also soliciting donations from the public through the temporary website to help reopen the center.

It said on its Facebook page late last week that it plans to announce the public phase of its fundraising campaign soon.

Typically, by the time a nonprofit takes a fundraising campaign public, it’s raised at least half of the amount it needs. The center told Crain’s in September that it had raised a little more than $2.5 million toward its $5 million goal.

DTE Energy Foundation two weeks ago became the latest organization publicly named as a supporter of the center’s bid to reopen, with a $250,000 commitment.

Other companies and foundations that have stepped up to help reopen the center include: Ford Foundation, General Motors Foundation, ITC Holdings, Lear Corp., Alex and Marie Manoogian Foundation and Penske Corp.

The money raised will be used for operations and to reacquire the center and its assets from philanthropist Ron Weiser.

Weiser, who is founder of McKinley Associates Inc. in Ann Arbor, national finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and former U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, in June acquired the roughly $6.2 million in debt on the science center for significantly less than owed from Citizens Bank of Flint.

That move saved the building and assets from being sold to the highest bidder at a public auction and has bought the science center’s board more time to raise the money to reopen the center.