Come late spring, the Tempe Historical Museum will close its doors to undergo renovations that will include an exhibit for ASU.

The reconstruction of the museum, which will begin during the second week of April, will re-create the main exhibit hall and split it into various sections that will each explain a different part of Tempe history, museum exhibits coordinator Dan Miller said.

Miller said the museum itself is being renovated in an effort to redefine its image toward a modern look and feel.

“Our goals are to increase the visibility of this museum,” he said. “This museum is really kind of bland, and our other goal is to completely change the exhibit hall.”

The story of ASU is going to be featured in a zone named College Town, Miller said.

The other zones of the exhibit are going to be named Surviving in the Desert, Building the City and Community, and Living Together as a Diverse Group of People, Miller said.

“In the past our exhibit was geared toward a timeline of Tempe, but now we’re going to shift to a thematic approach,” he said. “Since ASU is such a big player in Tempe, we wanted to dedicate a specific space for it,” Miller said.

College Town will feature a traditional ASU exhibit and a computer education station, where visitors can learn more about current research or performances at ASU that will not fit into the exhibit, Miller said.

Miller said the museum is collaborating with ASU to create an interactive map for the education stations.

“We’re looking to work with more people to try to get a neat link between [the museum] and ASU,” he said.

ASU professor of intermedia and co-director of PRISM lab Dan Collins is on board to assist museum officials in the ASU exhibit, which he said will incorporate multiple layers and dimensions of history into the museum.

“There will be oral history elements via video; information about sustainability, the environment and water use; demographics; planning data; transportation; etc.,” Collins said in an e-mail.

These components will be put into a multimedia display that involves a high-resolution video projection over a computer-generated 3-D terrain model, Collins said.

Miller said the visibility aspect is important for new visitors who don’t know what the building is.

Plans for the exterior include a creative and dynamic state-of-the-art entrance, he said.

“There [are] over a million people who visit the library every year, and that’s only 200 yards away, so increased visibility should attract more people,” he said.

Miller added that many people confuse the museum with the Arizona State Historical Museum, which is part of Papago Park.

“That’s why we want to do some of our building recognition work so we can be noticed as a … different entity,” he said.

Tempe Councilwoman Onnie Shekerjian said the renovations will be funded completely by bonds from the funds set aside for capital development.

“Just like other projects throughout the city, the voters voted to have this museum be redone, and the money being used is bond money,” she said.

Reach the reporter at brianna.mattox@asu.edu.