After 50 years of business, the San Francisco wax museum at Fisherman’s Warf will close after August 15.
The museum, with about 350 wax figures, was founded in a warehouse in 1963.
The museum won’t be gone forever, though. While the family that owns it will not be managing it anymore, the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum chain will take over the building, reported NBC. After a $35 million renovation and a new dungeon, the museum will open again in nine months.
“I’ve had mixed feelings about it,” Rodney Fong, president of the museum, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But it’s been a great run.”
The business has had more than 12 million visitors.
“The Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf will be a hard act to follow, but we believe we can build on its success,” Merlin Entertainments Managing Director Glenn Earlam said in a statement. The group will open the Madame Tussauds and the dungeon.
The wax figures that were part of the museum will all be sold as a collection.
