San Diego — Atlanta has been selected over Washington, D.C., and other cities as the site of a $250 million National Health Museum designed to teach visitors about healthier living and serve as a stage for international health events.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue announced the selection Wednesday at a biotechnology industry conference here.

The museum "cements Georgia's position as the crossroads of global health in the 21st century," Perdue said in prepared remarks.

State officials and museum backers are eying several sites around Centennial Olympic Park for the planned 190,000-square-foot museum. So far, neither the state nor the city has been asked to contribute funds for the museum, but both are heavily involved in planning for the museum.

Most of the money for construction, organizers said, would be raised through an international fund-raising drive.

Museum organizers say one of Atlanta's biggest selling points is the fact that it is home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, the Arthritis Foundation and other major health institutions. The area's universities and their growing medical and biotech programs also were a big selling point.

"We see tremendously powerful synergies for a location in Atlanta because of its great array of health assets," said Mark Dunham, president of the museum.

The National Health Museum has actually been in existence since 1997, Dunham said. But its only presence has been on the Internet and in sponsoring health education events and exhibits.

The group had originally planned to build a museum in Washington, D.C., where it is based. But after sizing up the vast array of competing museums in Washington and tiring of regulatory delays, the group later expanded its search to include Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Dunham said Wednesday that studies show Atlanta could draw 1.1 million to 1.4 million visitors annually — more than any other competing city except for New York.

It also didn't hurt that Atlanta resident Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and President Emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine, is chairman of the National Health Museum's board.

The architect chosen for the museum is Moshe Safdie, director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

Safdie's firm has offices in Boston, Toronto and Jerusalem.

According to preliminary plans, the museum will be separated into different "zones."

Overall it will have about twice the square footage of the new World of Coke (92,000 square feet) and about one-third the space of the Georgia Aquarium (580,000 square feet).