ST. MARY’S CITY — The public gets its first look inside Historic St. Mary’s City’s new visitor center on Saturday, Nov. 14, and it will not cost anything to walk through the door.
The state museum at the site of Maryland’s first capital will open the building from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 47373 Old State House Road. Admission that day is free for everyone under a sponsorship from the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area, though the museum is asking visitors to reserve timed tickets through its event page. Parking is on Old State House Road.
Saturday is an opening, not the grand opening. The museum said the day begins the center’s “inaugural season” and that a formal celebration with added programs is planned for spring 2027.
The distinction matters because the building has been a long time coming. Organizers describe the center as nearly 20 years in the making. When the museum broke ground, it was calling the project the Maryland Heritage Interpretive Center and said it was slated to open in 2024. As recently as this year’s legislative session, state budget analysts wrote that a grand opening was set for July 2026.
What is inside
The center replaces the cluster of blue barns on Hogaboom Lane that has served as the museum’s front door, and moves the starting point of a visit to a site along Route 5.
According to the museum and the heritage area, the building holds immersive exhibits, interactive media and educational spaces. The exhibits cover Indigenous history, the lives of enslaved and free African Americans, and the beginnings of religious freedom and representative government in Maryland. The museum said they were developed over years with tribal leaders, historians, educators and community members.
Three outside firms built the experience. Howard + Revis, whose work includes the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, designed the exhibits. Cortina Productions produced the media installations. Explus Inc., which fabricated the “Road to Berlin” exhibit at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, built them.
“This is a milestone for Maryland and a new reason for people to visit Southern Maryland,” Lucille Walker, president and CEO of Southern Maryland National Heritage Area Inc., said in a statement. “Maryland began here, and the stories of this place help us understand our region, our state and our nation.”
The cost, and what happens to the old center
The Department of Legislative Services put the total cost of the interpretive center at about $20.9 million in its analysis of the commission’s fiscal 2027 capital budget. That figure includes money from the state’s Construction Contingency Fund. In July 2025, the analysis said, the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission asked for up to $724,000 from that fund to cover costs it had not anticipated, including a longer design and engineering contract, fixes to design flaws and extra exhibit fabrication tied to project delays.
Commission Chairman Tim Heely, a retired Navy rear admiral, told lawmakers in budget testimony earlier this year that the center is the agency’s largest capital program in years.
The old visitor center is not going away. The state plans to renovate it and an adjacent storage building into education and artisan centers, adding restrooms, storage and indoor space for days when weather keeps people off the mostly outdoor grounds. Legislative analysts estimated that project at $13.7 million, with construction deferred to fiscal 2029 and completion expected in July 2029.
The heritage area sponsoring Saturday’s admission is a newly designated National Heritage Area covering Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties and southern Prince George’s County.
Historic St. Mary’s City can be reached at 301-994-4370 or hsmcc.info@maryland.gov. Regular admission prices and hours for the center after opening day were not included in the announcement.
