Textile museum to sell its home

The American Textile History Museum announced yesterday that it will reduce its hours and sell its five-story brick building in downtown Lowell as part of a plan to keep the struggling institution open.

Museum president Michael J. Smith also said yesterday that the museum, which has lost about $600,000 a year since moving from North Andover to Lowell in 1997, received a $1 million ''challenge" grant that will help it stay open Thursdays through Sundays starting in October. It's currently open six days a week.

''This is good news," said Smith. ''It means we're going to be up and operating, though certainly at reduced hours."

The museum, which draws about 50,000 visitors a year and has an annual budget of $2.2 million, originally opened as the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover in 1960. It spent about $8 million to renovate a former manufacturing building in Lowell and, after being renamed, opened in the 160,000-square-foot space on Dutton Street. But it didn't raise enough for the move to offset the increased costs. That has forced the museum to draw regularly from its endowment, which has plummeted from $7 million in 1999 to its current $2.8 million.

The new plan, adopted by the board of trustees last week, calls for selling the Dutton Street building as long as the museum can lease back part of it to stay open.

Smith said the museum must match the $1 million grant, which comes from an anonymous, out-of-state donor.

Details are still being worked out, but Smith said the museum will have more than a year to raise its portion of the matching grant.

The museum is also launching a campaign to raise $3 million for its endowment.

''This is a key move to strengthen ourselves," Smith said.

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.