The Curious Kids Museum in St. Joseph is planning a big move.
The organization announced Friday it’s purchasing the Priscilla Upton Byrns Center, the soon-to-be-former home of the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center at 601 Main Street.
Curious Kids Director Lori Marciniak tells us following a fire at its location on Lake Boulevard in 2022, Curious Kids decided to expand and renovate. However, that proved difficult when the city of St. Joseph declined to sell the building to the museum. The Heritage Museum than approached Curious Kids and the idea of moving into that building came into focus.
Marciniak says Curious Kids does want to maintain some presence at its current location on Lake Boulevard.
“While we still have 20 years left on our lease, we do think that the city has different plans for that building ultimately. And so we wanted to make sure that we’re celebrating our 35th year as the Cary’s Kids Museum in St. Joseph, Michigan. And we wanted to try to figure out how to stay in St. Joe and still have a big presence,” said Marciniak.
For now, Marciniak says the plan is to modify the Heritage building with some construction next year. A fundraising campaign to support that effort has started.
Meanwhile, Heritage Museum Board Treasurer Sven Erickson tells us Pricilla Upton Byrnes Center was once a bustling venue popular for weddings, concerts, and meetings, but in recent years, the events have dried up. That’s meant the loss of the museum’s main income stream.
“We decided, okay, let’s right-size our organizations. We needed less space, they needed more, and so we just got the building appraised and we came to a number that we agreed on and that’s how it all happened,” said Erickson.
The Heritage Museum is preparing to move its massive archives to a temporary site at Ship and Main Street before settling on its next moves. Its former director, Marco Tomasi, left the museum in September.
Erickson says looking ahead, “Everything’s on the table.”
