EASTON, Pa. — When completed, Nurture Nature Center’s Earth & Sky Dome will allow visitors to explore outer space — and that’s just to start.
“The dome can take you underwater. It can take you to deserts,” said Rachel Hogan Carr, the center's executive director. “It's going to be quite remarkable.
“But, throughout it all, we want it to be an interactive learning experience, where people can ask questions and have a breathtaking experience of looking overhead at this immersive programming, but then also try to understand, with their docent who's leading the program, how this matters in their lives, and what they're going to do with it.”
An $11 million expansion to the center at 518 Northampton St., the Earth & Sky Dome will be a 75-seat theater and performance space aimed at integrating science, art and community, officials said.
Drawing on the advice of international planetarium experts, and a first-of-its-kind in the Lehigh Valley, the dome is expected to draw students and visitors both locally and from outside of Pennsylvania, boosting ecotourism.
“This project is going to be able to capture a considerable amount of that tourism, and increase tourism not only to Easton, but to the county and the Valley at large."Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure
“This project is imaginative and it is brave,” Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure said during a mid-June news conference.
“ … This project is going to be able to capture a considerable amount of that tourism, and increase tourism not only to Easton, but to the county and the Valley at large. So, when we say our future is green, we're not just talking about leafy green, we're talking about the green that goes in people's wallets.”
‘The highest and best outcome’
Planning for the dome stretches back more than a half-decade, when center officials in 2019 were considering the former Easton Iron & Metal Co. site along the Bushkill Creek as a potential new location.
As part of the process, they successfully applied for funding through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), and were awarded $3.97 million.
At the same time, they completed a community needs assessment, Hogan Carr said. After speaking with local organizations and school districts, an idea emerged — an immersive dome theater as a central teaching tool.
While that location didn’t work out — a new mixed-use development is currently in progress — center officials were able to transition the funding to upgrade the current facility.
“The location here at 518 Northampton Street is central to town,” Hogan Carr said. “It's walkable to the West Ward.
“The building is historic and beautiful already, and now we'll be able to add this new addition that was originally conceived as part of the the planning for potentially another space. So, we merge those two ideas, and that's how we got here today.
“And think that really is the highest and best outcome.”
The closest facility with similar technology is the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, nearly 70 miles from Easton.
“It's quite impressive, and they've been a really helpful partner already in helping us learn how to scale up, but that is quite a distance,” Hogan Carr said. “And not very accessible for regional school districts here in the Lehigh Valley.
“In fact, a lot of the school districts that expressed strong support for this were from New Jersey, from Warren and Hunterdon counties, who were eager to have a close-by location for field trips — liking the idea of the addition of a dome, but also all of the other programming that we offer here through our current facility and exhibits.”
While the EDA grant will cover the construction, an additional $7 million is coming from the Nurture Nature Foundation to cover planning, equipment and other costs.
‘The wider world of nature’
As part of the planning process, the center has been collaborating with three Canadian planetarium experts: Bill Chomik, an architect, and consultants Ian McLennan and Bill Peters.
It’s quite a lineup, each with their own long list of credentials and experience.
Chomik is internationally recognized as a planetarium and observatory design specialist. Formerly the director of Canada's first planetarium, McLennan also ran the first permanent IMAX theater in Toronto before setting up his own consulting firm. Peters worked on the planning of the TELUS Spark Science Centre in Calgary.
The trio work together to help plan planetariums, immersive theaters and observatories all over the world.
“I think we were all attracted to [Nurture Nature Center’s project] because we very often are involved with planning planetariums, and that's fine with astronomy as a main major focus,” McLennan said.
“But, here, there's an opportunity to integrate the wider world of nature with some of the principles that are involved in the big picture of the universe, and that's very appealing to, I think, all of us.”
“It's not a question of what they will do, what they will see — it's how they will be changed. And that's been our focus right from the beginning.”Ian McLennan, planetarium consultant
The audience experience has been centered throughout the planning process, he said, adding, “It's not a question of what they will do, what they will see — it's how they will be changed. And that's been our focus right from the beginning.”
While the dome will use Digistar, billed as the world’s most advanced planetarium software, officials have additional plans in mind.
They’ll combine the audio-visual experience with live presenters and cultural performances, as well as create their own productions, exploring the landscape of the Lehigh Valley.
“What we're really trying to achieve — especially with young people, but for everyone — is to encourage people to be curious, self-motivated learners,” Peters said.
“And so, if people can walk out of the Earth & Sky Dome asking questions, seeing the environment around them in new ways, having a different understanding of what's going on and being motivated to learn more, then we’ve had a really successful outcome.”
Davis Construction and Philadelphia-based architect DIGSAU are also on the project.
‘Education out on the road’
The center’s doors shut last month, a temporary closing, as work began. Officials expect construction to be completed by the end of next year, with the theater opening in the summer or fall of 2027.
“We have major power upgrades that are happening to the building that will have us closed for an extended period of time, and we're working now to identify when we could phase a reopening of the building, but I don't have a date yet,” Hogan Carr said.
The first floor of the building — formerly The Strand Theatre, which opened in 1915 with silent films — will remain intact.
Everything behind that, made up of later additions and the center’s urban recycle garden, will be demolished, creating space for the new structure to house the theater. There’ll be a new entrance on Pine Street, with a sundial on the facade.
“The new entrance will include a new elevator that you'll be able to enter from the rear and take an elevator directly up to the third floor, where the theater will be, and the theater room will connect directly to the Science on a Sphere hall,” Hogan Carr said.
The center’s pocket garden, used to demonstrate low-cost growing techniques, will be moved to the parking lot.
“The parking lot will be slightly diminished in parking capacity, but we are going to continue that urban recycling [gardening] program, maybe in a slightly different format, but it's not disappearing at all,” said Jane K. Stanley, Nurture Nature Center’s founder.
However, just because the building is closed, doesn’t mean the center’s work stops, officials said, especially during the busy summer season.
“We're taking our education out on the road, which is something we always do,” Hogan Carr said.
“We will just amplify our presence out in community events and invite people to ask us to come and do demonstrations and education programs with them out in the community, because we are eager to stay in touch with everybody in the Lehigh Valley through these next few months.”
The Kids Create and Learn program, a popular summer series, will be held at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 330 Ferry St. On July 10, the center is screening “Microplastic Madness” at the city’s first Sustainability Movie Night at Historic Easton Cemetery.
