The long-awaited International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., was scheduled to open in January 2023 but has now been delayed.

According to a Dec. 19 statement from the museum’s organizers, temperature issues within the building resulted in the delay, “Due to challenges regarding the building’s humidity and temperature control, we have decided to postpone the opening of the International African American Museum.” The statement explained with delicate artifacts in the museum, the building must meet “the necessary, stringent conditions that a museum requires, to protect our most sensitive objects.”

A new opening date has yet to be announced, but the museum is aiming for the first half of 2023.

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The 150,000-square-foot museum will be located at Gadsden's Wharf, which Revolutionary War patriot Christopher Gadsden built in the 1760s.

According to the Associated Press, it is estimated that 40 percent of enslaved people transported to the United States in the late 18th and early 19th century walked across Gadsden's Wharf. During the final years of the international slave trade from 1803 to 1807, more than 70,000 enslaved Africans were transported to Gadsden's Wharf.

The museum has been 20 years in the making, costs $125 million, and will include nine exhibition galleries, an "African Ancestors Memorial Garden" and an ocean view.