In the old Salter School on London Road, a children's museum opened 80 years ago, positioning Duluth on the cutting edge of education, establishing our community as one of only a handful in the U.S. encouraging learning through play.
Children's museums are booming across the country today; there are about 600, with another 360 in development. Duluth has an opportunity to continue to lead the way by rallying around plans to move the Duluth Children's Museum from its cramped confines in the bowels of the Depot downtown to spacious new digs in Lincoln Park's Clyde Park Complex.
In December, the Duluth Children's Museum purchased for $725,000 the old Brewing and Malting building along I-35 just west of the 27th Avenue West exit -- and next door to the reborn Clyde Iron campus. An estimated $4.8 million is needed to transform the century-old brewery building into three stories of educational enjoyment. A capital campaign to raise the cash launches this week.
"We're very excited. We want people to really come out and see the plans," Michael Garcia, president and CEO of the Duluth Children's Museum, said in an interview last week with the News Tribune Opinion page.
"When people see the plans for the children of Duluth, they'll get behind us," said Patty Cartier, the capital campaign's chairwoman. "We're already getting a lot of great feedback. We've been talking to a lot of people. Once they realize what a great investment it is for the children of Duluth, and for our region, they'll get excited.
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"The people of Duluth will get behind this," Cartier said.
Duluthians should.
The move would quadruple the size of the Duluth Children's Museum, which occupies 7,000 square feet in the Depot. Its new home offers 28,000 square feet, easily enough room for rotating and/or traveling exhibits and for permanent features such as a technology and science center, a kitchen lab, a stage and performance area, a bubble room and a rooftop garden. With more space, programming can be expanded to better serve toddlers and teenagers.
The new facility promises to be well-used, too. An active Boys and Girls Club is right next door in the Duluth Heritage Sports Center. Families in town for hockey tournaments, soccer clinics and other activities at the sports center always are eager for things to do between games and sessions.
Additional square footage would mirror the growing popularity of the Duluth Children's Museum. Just four years ago the museum had 270 members. It boasts more than 6,200 members now.
"We're pretty confident this is going to happen," Cartier said of the fundraising, which she and others expect to be completed this year. That may be an optimistic timeline, but once money is raised, eight months of construction can begin led by Kraus-Anderson of Duluth. That's to be followed by six months of set-up and preparations for a grand opening. The lead architects on the project, from DSGW of Duluth, already have been busy.
Donors can contribute to the project confident they're not going it alone. In January, the museum learned it would receive $250,000 a year for 25 years in state-collected tax money via the Clean Water, Land and Legacy fund. Voters approved the new sales tax in 2008. The money, for operations, assures the children's museum a secure financial footing.
Donors can contribute, too, knowing they're giving to more than just a children's museum.
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"People are linking play, informal education and family fun with community vitality and the desire for a livable city and livable environments," Garcia said. "This (project) is good for all of Duluth."
And it's a project that's well worth
*allying around.
