City Hall is taking another step toward the creation of a heritage center inside Main Street Station to tell the story of the Shockoe area and the slave trade that once dominated the area’s development.

Two ordinances that were introduced to City Council on Monday and are set to be passed at the Nov. 13 meeting would authorize the city to contract with the fledgling Shockoe Foundation to plan, develop and operate the center and to raise money to keep it going.

The Mellon Foundation provided $11 million to the city in December 2022 to create the center.

“The center is being designed to orient visitors to the history of Shockoe generally and in particularly to Richmond’s role in the domestic slave trade,” said the foundation’s attorney, Gregory Werkheiser, a partner with his wife Marion Werkheiser in the Richmond-based Cultural Heritage Partners LLP law firm.

Mr. Werkheiser said the city is turning to the foundation to get around certain legal limits that would make it difficult for the city to be “efficient in executing and sustaining operations and programming.”

He said it is common practice for the city to identify a partner that would not face limitations,for example, in “being able to solicit private funds to ensure the sustainability of the center and the campus.”

He said his law firm is involved to ensure compliance with “legal requirements and best practices.”

Created 14 years ago, Cultural Heritage Partners remains the only firm in the nation, Mr. Werkheiser said, that specializes in the laws and litigation involving cultural heritage.

The center targeted for the training center is separate from plans for creation of a museum focused on slavery that is proposed for the area.

That project remains stalled.