The plan calls for the Children's Museum of Tampa to build near where she aims to create a cultural arts district.
By JANET ZINK
Published September 24, 2004
TAMPA - For nearly two years, the Children's Museum of Tampa has been looking for a new home.
The search may be over.
Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio on Thursday announced plans to give the Children's Museum land downtown.
If Tampa City Council approves the deal at its meeting next week, the museum, now on N Boulevard next to Lowry Park Zoo, would be built near the proposed Riverwalk along the Hillsborough River and just north of the future Tampa Museum of Art.
"It's probably the best real estate in the city," Iorio said. "They're getting a great location."
The property, adjacent to the Poe Parking garage and worth $3-million according to city officials, was approved for a condominium tower by the City Council in 2003. But former Mayor Dick Greco didn't sign the contract for the tower before the end of his term. When Iorio took office, she killed the project.
She said she prefers devoting the parcel to a project the public can enjoy.
Iorio said putting the Children's Museum at the riverfront location near the art museum and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center dovetails with her plans to create a cultural arts district in downtown Tampa and encourage people to live nearby.
"We want to make this whole area a destination point. We want it to be an area with constant activity and constant events," she said.
Land on Ashley Drive just north of the planned art museum was at one point considered for the Tampa Bay History Center. But Iorio said the 65,000-square-foot museum was too big for the site and would block views of the park and river from the street. Plans now call for that museum to go between Channelside and the St. Pete Times Forum.
Other than the land donation, the city will not provide funding for the Children's Museum, Iorio said.
The Hillsborough County Commission last year committed $250,000 to the museum, with that money contingent on the museum finding a suitable location, raising matching funds and creating a business plan.
All that's been accomplished, said Heidi Shimberg, who with state Rep. Sandra Murman, R-Tampa, will coordinate a capital campaign to raise money to build the museum. Shimberg said she estimates needing $10-million for construction, but won't have a solid figure for another six months.
The museum is expected to attract 100,000 visitors a year, Shimberg said.
It is scheduled to open in three to five years, said David Penn, president and CEO of the Children's Museum.
The current museum, next to Lowry Park Zoo on N Boulevard, has 5,000 square feet of exhibit space, most of it outdoors in a miniature village known as Kid City. Although a similar city-scape will be included in the museum, none of the Kid City buildings, which include a grocery store, fire station, city hall and library, will be relocated, Penn said. He said he doesn't know yet whether or not the existing Kid City will remain after the new museum opens.
The new museum will feature 15,000 square feet for permanent exhibits, 5,000 square feet for rotating exhibits and an education center that will offer information to teachers and parents as well as free tutoring in math and reading.
Planned exhibits include:
Arts and Crafts Village where children can choose from more than 100 different types of materials for their creations.
Music Factory where kids can experiment with musical instruments and take lessons.
A television production studio.
Ability Avenue, geared toward children with disabilities, and designed to teach other children what it's like to live with disabilities.
In the past decade, Penn said, more than 100 children's museums have opened across the country and 80 more are being planned, making them the fastest growing cultural institutions in the world. Penn attributes the growth spurt to recent research on the brain showing that people learn the most and best in the first three years of life.
Penn called the downtown location ideal.
"It's a little more central for us, and where better can you be than on Ashley Drive right off the interstate," he said.
He said he also looks forward to having the performing arts center, the museum of art and the John F. Germany Library as neighbors.
"We can more actively partner with them," he said.
