Some good news came to Lewiston’s Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor on Wednesday with a federal boost of $3 million for its new $14 million location at 1 Beech St.

The project, which is underway, involves rehabilitating the former Camden Yarns Mill, a historic 1860s mill adjacent to Simard-Payne Memorial Park, into a two-story 22,000-square-foot new home. It is scheduled to open in June.

Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins announced Wednesday she secured about $12 million in Congressionally Directed Spending to revitalize former paper and textile mill sites in East Millinocket, Lewiston, and Lincoln.

Of that amount, $3 million will “support the redevelopment of the Camden Yarns Mill to serve as Maine MILL’s permanent home,” according to Collins’ news release.

The museum is currently on Canal Street in Lewiston. It showcases the history of Lewiston-Auburn’s manufacturing mills and related trades.

Rachel Ferrante, the museum’s executive director, called the funding a “critical step to ensure we are able to complete the project on time. We still have important fundraising left to do, but we are confident we will complete the fundraising,” she said in a telephone interview.

“The federal government’s critical support of the Maine MILL will allow us to complete construction of our new facility in Lewiston and would firmly establish an important expansion of a major civic institution for our entire community,” she said.

“This investment will also significantly contribute to the economic development of the Lewiston-Auburn area. We are deeply grateful to Senator Collins for her essential support.”

The new location will be offer two floors of space. The existing Camden Yarns building is 14,000 square feet and an addition to the building will add about 8,000 square feet, Ferrante said.

The museum will always offer a primary exhibit as well as other exhibits that will rotate throughout the building.

There will be a classroom, a children’s space, hands-on design space such as a maker-space, as well as outdoor space for community gatherings, she said.

The museum “celebrates extraordinary stories of work and industrial ingenuity,” according to the Maine MILL’s website at mainemill.org. “Through our collection, exhibits, educational programming, and events, we invite visitors to explore how life, labor, and culture shape the present and influence the future.”

The museum’s collection is made up of over 10,000 artifacts, including salvaged industrial machinery such as a Jacquard loom, original bedspreads and industrial-size silkscreens from the famed Bates Manufacturing Co., and roughly 300 recorded interviews and oral histories from the people who worked at the Bates mill.

Museum staff are actively seeking ways to expand offerings and are continuously adding to the collection in order to tell the community’s story, Ferrante said.

“We are really excited to at last see it happening,” said Ferrante, who has been director for more than four years. “We’re excited for what we believe will be good for the community and the impact it will have as a destination and an economic driver for the city.”