September 14, 2005
Museum makes interim move
Children's Museum will reopen next year in donated location
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
After four years in their Front Street location, the Great Lakes Children's Museum has temporarily closed its doors.
The educational, hands-on facility will be moving to donated space in Leelanau County early next year, but for now, everything is going into storage. While the lights are still flashing on the Water Cycle exhibit, the space officially closed September 4. It is now strewn with boxes and everything from Mars to the lighthouse to the groundwater tunnel has to go. Taking down and boxing the Mars exhibit took most of last week.
As staff and volunteers pack and plan, sort and strategize, they are melding both short-term goals and long-term visions.
"Part of me is thinking about packing markers and part of me is thinking about, in 20 years, how is this building going to be used," said Mary Manner, director of education for the Great Lakes Children's Museum. "It makes it really fun but it stretches your brain to think really big."
"It really is a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle and we're looking forward to putting it together again," she added.
Volunteers have been helping throughout the process. On Thursday, the museum will welcome a team of volunteers from the United Way's annual Day of Caring to assist with packing and cleaning.
Sorting through each item to see whether it needs packing for the long or short term Monday morning, Manner said packing up a museum is very different from moving a household.
"Exhibits are put together so that they don't come apart," said Manner. "So a lot of the things that you do to construct an exhibit make it difficult to get it apart later on and some exhibits are built into the physical structure of the museum."
After early next year, the Great Lakes Children's Museum will be situated in a building donated by Michael Dow. The building will be located across from Heritage Harbor in Elmwood Township and space will be shared by four other related organizations: the Maritime Heritage Alliance, The Watershed Center and Traverse Area Community Sailing.
"The overlap of missions and the ability for synergy is really fantastic," said John Noonan, executive director of the museum.
With a third of their annual $300,000 budget going for rent every year, the move will save the museum a significant amount of money. In addition, it will allow the organization to focus on raising money needed for their hoped-for future location along the Boardman River on State Street downtown. A city referendum passed last November approving the use of that property for the Great Lakes Children's Museum.
"This [move] is really exciting for us because for the past four years we've been struggling under the burden of downtown market lease rates," Noonan said.
Noonan anticipates that the museum will be in the donated space for between three and five years. This new facility is approximately the same size as the current space but staff is eager to restructure their exhibits.
"We're pretty sure we can make better use of the space from what we've learned here," noted Noonan.
Although they will be closed for a number of months, the Great Lakes Children's Museum will continue to be an educational force in the community. They are collaborating with the Dennos Museum to present an exhibit entitled "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," which will run from October to January. In addition, Manner will be presenting programs during the fall, harking back to the museum's days before it had a building when it brought traveling exhibits to schools and events.