New Modesto Children’s Museum has a ‘perfect fit’ home. Here’s where you’ll find it
The founding board of directors for the Modesto Children’s Museum formed in summer 2019 and since then has been looking for just the right home.
It’s found one.
“We own a building!” board Vice President Ryan Foy said by email Wednesday after paperwork was finalized to have the former Heart & Soul Coffee location at 930 11th St. taken over by the museum.
The two-story, roughly 11,500-square-foot space opened as Heart & Soul — operated by The House Modesto church — in October 2017 but closed last fall.
For 15 years, ending in 2016, the spot was the Fat Cat Music House & Lounge. And as soon as early 2023, it could open as a space with interactive, hands-on exhibits focused on children about age 9 and under.
Programming still is being developed, but the museum will have a large climbing structure on its ground floor, an art studio upstairs, a water-play area, many exhibition stations throughout and a story-time area. The stage will be kept for the opportunity to have theater and music presentations, Foy said, and when not in use for that, it’s a pretend-play area where children can dress up and perform themselves.
Adding to downtown richness
The children’s museum will add to the scope of family offerings in downtown Modesto, including the Mistlin Gallery, Gallo Center for the Arts, Escape Modesto, Brenden Theatres and the McHenry Mansion.
Board members looked at warehouses and other spaces around the city, but many were in too much disrepair or too big, Foy said. Building their own facility also would not have been economically feasible, he said.
“But this building came on the market in November, and we sort of jumped on it because it checks all the boxes of where we want to start,” he said. Downtown is a central location, and there’s a parking garage right across the street, with a crosswalk that leads directly to the museum’s front door.
Then there are the amenities nearby, he said, including lots of restaurants and the Gallo Center, with its school bus lane for field-trip drop-offs and its newly opened outdoor Centennial Music Garden.
“I’m so excited they chose that space,” Gallo Center Executive Director Lynn Dickerson said. “It’s great for downtown and there will be natural synergies with the Gallo Center, the State Theater, the McHenry Museum, etc. The spot seems like a perfect fit to me. I’m 100% supportive!”
Added Josh Bridegroom, president and CEO of the Downtown Modesto Partnership, “The Modesto Children’s Museum will be another anchor for downtown, helping to attract new patrons from the region into the city center. It’s a welcome addition to the growing list of downtown amenities, and we look forward to the energy and increased foot traffic that it will generate!”
The museum board anticipates that once up and running, the attraction will bring “85,000 extra guests” to downtown each year.
It’s basing its projections in part on a survey put out through libraries, school districts and community centers, Foy said. There were 2,500 responses to the survey from 53 ZIP codes as far north as Manteca and as far south as Merced, he said.
More than 75% of survey respondents said they’d be willing to pay an entry fee of between $6 and $15. And 85% said they’d want the option of having an annual pass. School field trips also are anticipated as a main source of revenue.
Now, how to pay for it
The museum board members are going hard on fundraising, including making presentations to Rotary and Kiwanis clubs and sorority groups. They have the support of a community advisory council and have been getting help through the Stanislaus Community Foundation and Opportunity Stanislaus.
“Since we started fundraising in December, we have been able to raise $1.8 million in committed funds,” Foy said. “Our full capital campaign to get doors open by 2023 is (an estimated) $5.5 million, so we are already at one-third in just four months.”
The board’s financial predictions have the museum financially solvent by 2027 “in the sense that our income from customers would be covering our actual business expenses,” he added.
Right now, the museum is looking for donors big and small. Like its fellow grass-roots, child-focused effort The Awesome Spot inclusive playground planned for Beyer Park in north Modesto, it’s offering naming sponsorships. The museum itself, each floor, the cafe, the stage, the arts studio, the water-play area and the climbing structure each can bear a name for a price, Foy said.
The museum seeks government as well as private funding, he said, and is positioning itself to receive COVID-19 economic recovery dollars.
Economic recovery, in the form of bringing in tourism dollars, is one element of the museum’s threefold case for why it matters, Foy said. The other two are educational recovery and quality of life.
About 70% of kids going into kindergarten in Stanislaus County are not rated kindergarten ready, he said, and almost as high a percentage of third-graders are not reading at grade level. That lag can carry all the way up to high school gradudation rates, college graduation rates and post-college job placement. “It all starts at the bottom,” Foy said, and the museum’s aim is to help kids from an early age.
It is looking forward to working with Stanislaus County Office of Education and all of the local school districts “to facilitate our programming to match their curriculum as time goes on,” he said.
As for quality of life, Modesto and Stanislaus County need amenities like the children’s museum to attract and keep employers and their employees, Foy said. Stockton has its Children’s Museum, Lodi has its World of Wonders Science Museum, and there are a wealth of kids museums in the Bay Area and up and down the coast, he said, but Stanislaus County has nothing like them.
The museum founders initially imagined having a 35,000- to 40,000-square-foot space, but the 11th Street site was too good to pass up. Its goal still is to grow over time, whether that means expanding to other locations and/or to other experiences. The 20-year plan is to be a “powerhouse” piece of Modesto, Foy said.
“We’re focused on making a really high-quality experience in this building,” added museum board President Katie Barber, “and down the road, maybe we can cater to an older demographic of children as well.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
