Packing in playability: Inside Port Huron's developing kids' museum

It’ll be a few more months until local families and visitors can check out the city of Port Huron’s developing kids' museum downtown — aptly named for the now-closed exhibit that helped give rise to the idea last year.

An exact date and other details, such as an admissions program or the future location of the site’s official entrance, are still under consideration for Port Huron’s Discovery City Children's Museum.

However, Cynthia Broomfield, the city’s special projects coordinator, said they were looking at opening sometime this fall.

“You know, get through the summer months. It’s recreation (season), so that’s the department overseeing this. Obviously, their summers are extremely busy. So, opening up right before the summer season hits just didn’t really make sense for us,” she said on Monday. “But otherwise, we’re moving along pretty well.”

After setting aside city-administered funds last year to get the museum effort going, officials are also hoping federal COVID stimulus dollars from St. Clair County would help close the gap.

“It’s really exciting what we’re doing in there,” Broomfield said. “We’re looking to hopefully get the county ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds through (County Commissioner) Lisa Beedon available to us to help with these last purchases that we’re needing for different exhibits going in there.”

The city picked up the former Knowlton Ice Museum, 317 Grand River Ave., last year from the Community Foundation of St. Clair County for a new kids-centric facility.

A few years earlier, the city purchased the former Discovery City equipment from an out-of-state museum before opening a kids exhibit in partnership with the Port Huron Museums at the Carnegie Center from late 2021 until early last year.

Now, the interactive features and familiar house-like structures of that setup — already refurbished previously with a Blue Water theme — are once again being repurposed for future play.

Walking through the 8,000-square-foot Knowlton site on Tuesday, Recreation Supervisor Kati Gardner said roughly a third of the space will be occupied by the initial Discovery City equipment.

The rest is new, and her favorite, she said, was a treehouse-like playscape that greets visitors off Grand River.

“We all really love that space out front,” Gardner said. “We were looking at more of a McDonald’s playscape-type climber, and really, it’s working to bring through that natural look to things and thinking outside the box as far as indoor play. We’re trying to pack as much playability and fun into this square footage as we possibly can.”

So, what will the kids' museum include?

Outside Discovery City’s original setup, plenty of other equipment laid in wait to be assembled as of last week — in addition to other play purchases not yet on site.

There was a construction zone, building blocks and giant Legos, an interactive water table, a race track where kids can build their own car, an in-progress camping exhibit, an empty room slated to be for toddlers, and a wall painted green that’s planned to host a mini-theater with a system where kids can project themselves into a movie.

According to materials being provided by the city to St. Clair County officials, other potential features that needed a funding boost included:

• An ice play area with a slushy table and igloo structure

• A soft play area

• A finished water feature area with sensory and display tables

• A creation station

• Tornado simulator

• Pirate ship

• Medical office

• Reading nook

• Enhanced features for a grocery store, bank, and police and fire setup

[scribd id=715032621 key=key-YR7fZXFrCYP0jk2KSyzh mode=scroll]

Gardner said they’d also have a nature scape area, where they can incorporate different features native to the region and Michigan.

Officials have said that they took field trips to other museums to help gauge popular attractions for kids, and that after former a museum moms’ group to spitball early ideas, they expected to continue public engagement this summer closer to the museum’s opening.

Gardner and Broomfield said they also planned to rotate exhibits, benefiting repeat visitors.

“We're going to go with what the kids are loving is going to stay,” Gardner said. “It’s been a labor of love, for sure.”

How much will it cost?

Every member of the county’s board of commissioners has until the end of this year to assign uses for $1 million shares of the county’s total ARPA allocation.

Beedon is asking the board to grant the city of Port Huron $300,000 from her share.

Part of it at $100,000 would go toward accessibility needs at Pine Grove Park, where a new playscape was being installed this spring — something Beedon said she thought would allow more people the opportunity to participate in activities at the popular park. The rest of her request was $200,000 for the kids’ museum.

County commissioners were to consider the combined item at Thursday’s meeting.

“The children’s museum is an important addition to downtown as it creates a year-round experience for children of all ages,” Beedon said in a message Tuesday. “Although separate from Port Huron Museums, it complements the initiatives already taking place in the city supporting our history and arts. It also supports ongoing recreational and educational activities throughout the county.”

According to the city, the $200,000 was part of a greater $1.5 million, three-year investment for the museum.

The city originally purchased exhibit equipment from the Minnesota Children’s Museum for $53,800.

Then, last year, months after the Carnegie Center closed the Discovery City setup, the city OK’d a three-year lease agreement for the Knowlton space with the Community Foundation of St. Clair County at $16,000 a year, plus $1 per museum ticket sold.

With $200,000 of the city’s own ARPA allocation, Deputy City Manager Nancy Winzer was additionally authorized to seek up to $750,000 in funding to get the museum ready.

The total estimated budget for exhibit purchases was $500,000, including the county’s aid.

Additional grants and sponsors were being sought to close the $300,000 gap.

Even once complete, Broomfield said the fundraising effort won’t truly end, either, as they finance general operations in the years ahead.

“We’re not ever really going to be done, per se,” she said, “but between what the city provided through ARPA and what we hope to get through the county ARPA and the purchase of the Discovery City, of course, we feel pretty set.”

Officials have cited the museum as a broader benefit for the community and downtown — a sentiment City Manager James Freed reiterated Tuesday, adding it’s “not just a parks and rec project — versus just a new outlet for local kids.

“We believe this will be a significant economic driver for downtown and will bring significant foot traffic to downtown and help bring more customers to our retailers."

In a memo to St. Clair County officials, Freed and Winzer call the museum “another asset activating a key corridor in downtown Port Huron” with its proximity to the Wrigley Center across the street and McMorran Place two blocks away.

“Through hands-on exhibits both stationary and traveling, imaginative programming, and unique offerings, the children’s museum will service a need for accessible, indoor recreational free play,” they wrote, “a need not currently met in our region.”

Officials said more formal announcements when the museum would open was expected to be made through the parks and recreation department’s social media pages.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Packing in playability: Inside Port Huron's developing kids museum