The Louisiana Children’s Museum has announced that they are moving. They are building a new $45.5 million Children’s Museum in the city’s New Orleans City Park.
The museum’s existing 30, 000-square-foot site has been in the city’s Warehouse District for the last 30 years. This current location has parking issues and the new site will make the museum readily accessible to everyone throughout the state.
The Louisiana Children’s Museum Moves Outside
The Louisiana Children’s Museum in City Park will have both indoor and outdoor environmental facilities. These will include bridges, decking, decks, sensory and edible gardens, a floating classroom and a newly restored wetland area.
The LEED certified building will sit on less than one acre of the eight and a half acre plot. It will overlook a lagoon.
Julia Bland is CEO of The Louisiana Children’s Museum. She said, “We are thril
led that the educational exhibits – indoors and out – will take advantage of the natural park setting. This new facility will give us the environment, resources and tools to positively impact early learning and education – a critical need in Louisiana which regularly falls at the bottom of national educational rankings.”
Other facilities on the new museum campus will include a literacy center, five new indoor, interactive exhibit galleries, a cafe and a parent-teacher resource center.
An Experiential Floating Classroom
Furthermore, the grounds will boast a huge, interactive chess board. This will teach children about New Orleans history. There will also be an experiential floating classroom on the edge of the lagoon. The Mighty Mississippi exhibit will tell the story of the journey of the River from the Twin Cities, through St. Louis and Memphis, through to the Port of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.
Bland said, “While we will have these wonderful new exhibits, LCM is not going to forget some of the much-loved features from Julia Street, including the grocery store and bubbles. Guests will enter through the ‘VestiBlue, ’ a nod to our iconic big blue doors.”
Expected to open in 2018, the museum hopes to attract up to 225, 000 visitors a year.
The museum raised the $45.5 million cost of the project through a combination of private donations and federal grants. There was further support from the state of Louisiana.
https://wgno.com/2017/01/25/louisiana-childrens-museum-relocating-to-45-5m-site-in-city-park/
