Civic life in the Valley takes another step forward next week when the long-awaited Children's Museum of Phoenix opens in the old Monroe School.

Ten years in development, the $22.8 million project expands the family-oriented attractions in the city's downtown. The museum targets children up to age 10 with activities and exhibits aimed at intellectual and emotional development while providing parents ... with another family-friendly destination to take their kids.

"They are going to help build excitement for our downtown as a cultural destination," said Chevy Humphrey, director of the neighboring Arizona ... Science Center. "We're looking to keep downtown vibrant."

The new museum fills 55,000 square feet of the 1913 Monroe School building with hands-on exhibits designed to draw in children and create interaction between them and their parents.

Unlike traditional museums, it will not be about art or science and will not have a collection of paintings or bones.

"What's special about the children's museum is that it is for someone, not about something," President and Chief Executive Deborah Gilpin said. "The more we can give children educational and multisensory experience in those early years, we can achieve the greatest potential for them as they get older.

The children's museum is the third such museum in Arizona but dwarfs the other two in ambition and budget.

With a planned annual budget of $3.5 million, it is more than twice the size of the Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa ($1.3 million) and the Tucson Children's Museum ($850,000) combined.

The new museum will have a staff of about 85.

She said it hopes to draw 300,000 to 500,000 visitors a year.

"Children's museums are the most highly attended of all museums combined, nationally," Gilpin said.

The opening weekend has already sold out.

The new museum does not see itself as competition for the others.

"There are more than enough children," Gilpin said, "so we don't need to compete."

The oldest of the three children's museums is the Arizona Museum for Youth, which opened in 1981 and draws about 75,000 visitors a year.

"With there being close to 5 million people in the Valley, there are plenty of people to support both," said Sunnee Spencer, executive director of the Mesa museum.

The new museum was conceived in 1998 by a group including Kim van der Veen, who spearheaded the project in the early years, when it was called the Phoenix Family Museum.

In 2001, Proposition 6, a voter bond issue, provided $66.3 million for various cultural facilities. Included was $10.5 million for the Arizona Family Museum.

The following year, $5 million of that was spent to buy the Monroe School building, which had been vacant since 1988.

The rest went to upgrading and renovating the building, including air-conditioning and a new roof.

Gilpin was hired in 2005 to spearhead the museum and its capital campaign to raise an additional $12.3 million. Large grants have raised most of that.

 

Children's museums are the fastest-growing niche in the museum world.

The first was the Brooklyn Children's Museum, which opened in 1899, but even by the 1970s, there were only about 35 in the U.S.

"Then, there was a growth spurt in the 1980s, when about 80 new children's museums opened," said Diane Kopasz of the Association of Children's Museums in Washington, D.C. "And, since 1990, almost 150 have opened."

In addition, most mainstream museums have beefed up their educational component, reaching out to children.

"In the last 25 years, there has been a much greater emphasis for education in museums," said Tom Wilson, director of the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa.

Museums focusing on children in an urban area should have a huge impact on Phoenix, he said.

"It should get them started early in the museum habit that will spill over to the rest of their lives," he said.

Children's museums do this with hands-on exhibits.

"Art museums are usually a hands-off experience," said Peggy Solis of the Tucson Children's Museum. "But we build our exhibits sturdy as we can; we don't have to tell kids, 'Don't touch.' It's 'Feel this fossil, put your hand on the Van de Graaff generator.' "

It's how children learn best, Kopasz said.

"Try to tell someone about paper making 2,000 years ago in China and blah, blah, blah, and it's all fine and good," she said, "but for a 5-year-old, you say, 'This is chopped-up paper, and this is linen, and we're going to mush it up in water and scoop it out on screens, and when it dries, we're going to have a piece of paper you can draw on,' and they have a fuller understanding of what you mean. And when they go home, they tell their parents, 'Today, we made paper.' "

It is not just information, but the sensory stimulus that promotes learning, Gilpin said.

"If you look at all the research on how children's brains are wired up, you see that when a child is exposed in the first three years to rich environments, the networks in their brains grow really rich," she said.

The addition also helps the business environment.

"In a broad way, it is what makes a city desirable," Kopasz said. "In terms of business relocating, they want to have something for families ... with children, and a children's museum is a real mark of distinction."

Downtown Phoenix is growing with new construction, Arizona State University's campus, light rail and new businesses.

"I've been here for 13 years, and there are so many more things to do now," Humphrey said. "You can shop, there are tons of restaurants, the ballpark," Humphrey said.

"People can come to the Children's Museum of Phoenix for half a day and to the Arizona Science Center for the rest of the day and make a vibrant experience for all.

"They are going to help build excitement for our downtown as a cultural destination."

Tom Ambrose, executive director of Phoenix Suns Charities and chairman of the board of the Children's Museum of Phoenix, said, "It seems like every other major metro area has at least one viable children's museum, and some have several. They are museums everyone talks about.

"You can build all the skyscrapers you want, but if you want a world-class city, you can't forget the children."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/0 ...

I took Rivers to the Phoenix Children's Museum on Saturday - AWESOME!!  This is the best museum around for children under 10 and just perfect for his age. 

We spent 3 hours there and could have easily spent more time - we ended getting a membership.

I had to encourage Rivers to move from one place to another just so we could get a feel for the place.  We barely scratched the surface on what was out there for him to explore.

 

 

my sister took her son there and said it was great still need to take simon i have a feeling he will have a blast.

He would and it wasn't a lot of parental work for me!  We did things together, but there was a lot he could do on his own and I could hang back & watch him.