Staff photo / Andy Gray Mary Ann Porinchak, executive director of the National Packard Museum, shows off the architectural renderings for a planned expansion of the museum that will enable it to house up to 30 more vehicles.

WARREN — More and more automobile collectors want to donate their vintage Packard vehicles to the National Packard Museum.

It’s a good problem to have, but it comes with a legitimate dilemma — where to store them?

To accommodate its growing collection, the museum is planning a 4,960-square foot expansion that can house up to 30 vehicles and will include a mechanics bay for any needed repairs and maintenance.

Phillips Sekanik Architects Inc. in Warren did the design and the estimated cost is between $1.1 and $1.5 million. Mary Ann Porinchak, executive director of the museum, said they’ve already raised more than $200,000 before starting the official fundraising campaign.

“I have started the quiet phase of it, personally contacting donors that have supported us for many years on a larger scale, and I’ve been batting a thousand with them,” Porinchak said. “Every one of them has told me, ‘You’re not going to have any trouble raising this money,’ and it’s because we have a reputation. We are known for presenting great events, and we have been operating in the black since 1999.”

After recent acquisitions in the past couple of years, the museum essentially is at full capacity. When it displays special exhibits, such as the annual motorcycle show opening next weekend, or is rented out for special events, it is increasingly difficult to maneuver the collection to make room for those activities.

The last Packard automobiles were manufactured in 1956 (1958 if the vehicles produced during a brief Packard-Studebaker merger are included). The collectors who grew up idolizing Packard vehicles are getting older, and those collectors (or their heirs) have been donating their cars to places like the National Packard Museum, where they know they will be preserved.

“We saw the need several years ago when we started seeing consistently more and more cars being donated to us,” Porinchak said.

The 62-foot-by-81.5 foot expansion will be built on the south end of the museum and will extend to where the chain link fence is between the museum and Packard Music Hall on Mahoning Avenue NW.

The current south wall of the original structure will be replaced with a glass wall, so museum visitors will be able to see the vehicles that are in storage as well as any work being done in the mechanics bay. The glass wall was inspired by a visit Porinchak made to the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska, and visits by Packard board members to other automotive museums that have a similar set up.

The planned addition will feature 10 car lifts, which will allow the museum to store vehicles stacked on top of each other. In between the lifts will be spaces for several other vehicles.

With its existing collection and vehicles already promised to the museum, Porinchak said six of those 30 spots will be filled as soon as the building is completed.

Most of the work for the new structure can be done with little disruption to the existing building. Even when they replace the south wall with the glass partition connecting the two buildings, it shouldn’t require more than a temporary closure of a small portion of the current space. Porinchak said she doesn’t believe the entire museum will have to close during any part of the process.

The first phases of the project — site preparation, pouring the foundation and the building package — will cost between $300,000 and $450,000. Porinchak said she wants to start those steps as soon as they reach $400,000 for the fundraising campaign, which she hopes to reach by spring

“I want to do it when the weather is decent and when everybody’s ready to roll,” she said. “It’s an easy project in that it doesn’t have any plumbing or anything like that. It’s basically a glorified pole barn with pretty walls and signage and a glass front.”