Planned Children’s Museum Will Need $7-$10 Million to Open

ST. CLOUD -- Earlier this week we learned a non-profit group wants to turn a bank into a children's museum in downtown St. Cloud. We now have a better idea of what it will take to make that a reality. Great River Children's Exploratorium board member Glen Palm was on the News @ Noon Show Wednesday.

He says they'll need to raise several million dollars with a fundraising campaign.

Probably we will need between $7 million and $10 million.  It changes depending on what will actually go in there.  That's a process and it's a moving target.  But we have some idea just by looking at other children's museums.

He says in the next six months they'll launch the capital campaign and start creating the designs of the exhibits.  He says there's a lot of work to be done before they can open their doors.

It will depend on our decisions to open it in phases or not.  The building is 25,000 square feet.  We've been talking about the first level, where there's 12,000 square feet.

Full-time staff will include an executive director, a programming director, and a few other people.

The children's museum will be geared toward kids ages zero to 10 years old.

On Monday the Liberty Bank Minnesota announced they are donating their building on 7th Avenue to the non-profit group after they move out later this fall.