For anyone who knows anything about the Curious Kids’ Museum in St. Joseph, they know it’s a place for kids to imagine, learn, play, and make memories. In its 34 years of operation, the museum has engaged across generations of children, showing them fun things about dinosaurs and space, how wind and water react, where apples come from and where they go after harvest, basic principles of gravity and light, and what it’s like to be on television, among other things.
Now the Curious Kids’ Museum is at a crossroads. Should it buy and renovate the building it currently occupies, should it keep renting and remain constrained to what it is today, or should it think about a different future altogether.
A Transformation Sparked By Fire
In the early hours of July 5, 2022, Executive Director Lori Marciniak is confident lightning struck the building. That morning, volunteers arrived to a strong smell of something burning. When they discovered thick smoke on the second floor, they evacuated the building and called 9-1-1. Emergency responders found a fire that had already burned through a portion of the ceiling and was spreading in the inner walls of the more-than-a-century-old building.
Fire fighters quickly doused the blaze but the damage put the museum out of commission for more than a year while Marciniak and her team pulled together the repairs (including installing new smoke detectors).
In that years’ time, Marciniak and her team reimagined the future of the museum. Part of that vision calls for a refreshed building with larger exhibit spaces, more kid-focused engagement areas, and additional bathrooms, exterior updates, and administrative space.
“We would like to take the tragedy of the fire and turn it into just an amazing thing for the city of St. Joe. For our guests and the residents, we would like to add about 4,000 square feet to the museum and update every subsystem. This is a 108-year-old building. We need new heating and cooling, new windows, and we need the building to be laid out like a children’s museum.”
Selling Donors on the Vision
Marciniak went to the non-profit’s board of directors and presented her vision and what it would cost. For building upkeep and improvements alone, the estimate is $5 million. For the new exhibits, including a two-story dinosaur, another $2 million. The consensus is that the vision is sound, but an investment of that magnitude would have to be made in a building the Curious Kids’ Museum owned, not leased. The focus now is to renovate and add on to Memorial Hall – a move Marciniak said is an investment in the Museum and the city of St. Joseph.
“Don’t get me wrong, for 34 years, we’ve loved this location and we love this building, but we would like to take it to the next level and create a world-class children’s museum in St. Joseph.”
The city of St. Joseph owns the Memorial Hall building. It was built by the U.S. Government in 1915 and gifted to the city in 1936. After serving several decades as a fraternal lodge, the building was rented by commercial entities for brief periods before the Curious Kids’ Museum leased the property in 1989. The lease is nearing the middle of its 39-year agreement and since the fire, they’ve made two offers to the city to buy the building.
Selling the City Commission on the Vision
The first offer was based on the city’s appraisal of the property, which came in at $140,000 due to the consideration of the Museum’s 22 years remaining on the lease. The city rejected that offer.
The Museum’s second offer for $500,000 is now on the table. That figure is based on the city’s alternative property appraisal, which doesn’t take into account the Museum’s remaining 22 years left on the lease. Marciniak said the Museum offered more than the alternate appraisal of $482,700 because it wanted to demonstrate ongoing good faith, purchase the building, and move forward with an aggressive capital campaign.
City commissioners are still deciding whether to accept the latest offer but have so far balked. Instead of discussing the offer at the most recent city commission meeting, commissioners put off the decision, at least until the city attorney has had a chance to review the offer and a full commission could be present for the vote.
Part of the reason for the hesitation is possibly linked to a market analysis commissioned by the city that suggests the property could be worth $1.4 million if offered on the open market. Marciniak points out that analysis is not an appraisal and it includes the value of the adjacent parking lot, which is not part of the museum’s property offer.
Marciniak also said the valuations don’t take into account the people traffic the Curious Kids’ Museum brings to downtown St. Joseph all year. Since 1989, the Museum has recorded nearly 1.8 million visitors – infants, toddlers, and school-age children enjoying something that’s fun and educational.
“We’ve done the very best we can with a (structure) that was built in 1915, but we would like to level up the visitor experience (and) the comfort of the entire building. If you’ve ever potty trained a child, it would be really nice to have bathrooms on every floor.”
Bet Hedging By the City
In an update to the city commission at their August 14 meeting, Commissioner Michele Binkley relayed several conditions “…related to the City Commission’s expressed desire to see the Museum continue and expand in the downtown, as well as potential future public interests.”
Those conditions include a commitment that the property would remain a children’s museum for the foreseeable future, and that the city be granted a right of first refusal clause, allowing the city an opportunity to repurchase the property in the event the Museum choses to sell.
Marciniak says the offer already includes a contingency that states unless the Curious Kids’ Museum secures at least $4 million for its renovations in 24 months, the sale will not go through, and the city keeps the property. Since the $4 million would be raised as part of a capital campaign, Marciniak says the money can’t be used for anything except to complete the reimagined vision for the museum.
“Every investment we make in this building is a leasehold improvement since we do not own the building. We have already added 2,700 square feet to the building. We’ve added an elevator. We’ve added ramps in the front and in the back of the building. Our donors have said, ‘you know, that’s enough for a building we don’t own.’”
We’re told the city commission is likely to address whether to accept the latest offer from Curious Kids’ in September.
