Vontz Family invests in treasures of our region; names new Cincinnati Museum Center facility
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 7, 2025
MEDIA CONTACT: Cody Hefner (513) 608-5777, chefner@cincymuseum.org
The Vontz Family invests in the treasures of our region
The Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center celebrates the importance of our region's history and scientific research
CINCINNATI – Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC) is making a major investment in the future of the organization by securing our region’s past. CMC has purchased and will begin adapting property near Union Terminal to preserve, share and learn from the region’s natural and cultural history.
The former Heidelberg Distributing facility on Dalton Avenue will become The Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center. The state-of-the-art facility will offer more efficient access to the museum’s collections and will allow the museum to consolidate treasures from the multiple facilities currently housing them.
The $45 million dollar project presents a significant investment in the West End and Queensgate community by reinvigorating the historic property. To date, CMC has raised $15 million toward that goal.
“The Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center is an investment in our community’s stories and the shared natural and cultural heritage that has shaped who we are and informs who we can become,” said Elizabeth Pierce, president & CEO of Cincinnati Museum Center. “Being the keepers, the caretakers and the storytellers for these treasures is one of our great responsibilities at Cincinnati Museum Center and the support of generous donors like the Vontz Family ensure we can continue, and expand, that work at the highest level.”
The Vontz Family’s significant philanthropic support signals a commitment to the community’s deep history and a more informed future. It also continues the family’s legacy in the West End. In 1907, Albert Vontz Sr., a German brewer, immigrated to Cincinnati and worked in several breweries before opening the Vienna Brewery in Over-the-Rhine following the repeal of Prohibition. In 1938, Vontz Sr. purchased the Dayton, Ohio branch of Covington’s Heidelberg Brewing Company and began distributing beer and wine under the same name, Heidelberg Distributing.
The company expanded to the West End of Cincinnati in 1964 when Albert Vontz Jr. purchased a small distributorship located on Dance Court under the 8th Street Viaduct, and in 1967, when Heidelberg built a distribution center at 925 Dalton Avenue, two blocks south of Union Terminal. Heidelberg would eventually outgrow both spaces and moved their Cincinnati operations to the corner of Dalton and Liberty in 1981, where it operated under family ownership until 2022 as one of the nation’s largest beer, wine and spirits wholesalers.
“My father long believed that it was extremely important to give back to the community,” remembered Al Vontz III, a former two-term member of CMC’s Board of Trustees. “He would often say that you could have 100% share of the beer and wine markets, but if Cincinnati failed to thrive along with the Company, it would mean nothing.”
It is in that spirit that Vontz III, alongside his wife Margaret and his son Albert IV, together have supported CMC’s campaign to preserve and repurpose the site and to invest in the West End’s bright future.
CMC cares for over six million historic artifacts and scientific specimens cataloged into over a dozen collections, including both vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, zoology, mineralogy, archaeology, history objects, fine art, manuscripts, moving images and photographs. Among those treasures, CMC boasts the world’s largest and finest collection of Ordovician fossils from over 420 million years ago, the world’s largest collection of sauropod dinosaur skulls – both critical to ongoing scientific research – and the most complete collection of photographs from Cincinnati-based Black photographer and abolitionist J.P. Ball. The region’s treasures within CMC’s collections include objects with national and global significance, including a July 9, 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence known as the Holt Broadside – one of only five surviving copies – and the remains of the last living great auk. From local students to international researchers, local genealogists to amateur historians, CMC receives over 1,000 research visits each year with another 8,000 online collections portal searches. Dozens of collections items are loaned out each year to museums across the globe, demonstrating the global impact of Cincinnati’s local stories.
As CMC prepares to move the community’s treasures to the Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center, they have hired the SmithGroup, an architecture firm with unique expertise to facilitate the adaptation of the historic facility.
The SmithGroup and partners will continue assessments and initial schematic designs through the fall of 2025 with construction expected to begin in summer 2026. CMC is targeting late 2027 to complete the move to the Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center.
As the project progresses, CMC will continue fundraising toward its $45 million goal. Those interested in contributing to the project can donate at supportcmc.org or reach out to donate@cincymuseum.org for more information.
