The Minnesota Children’s Museum is expanding! Closed now for the winter, the Minnesota Children’s Museum will be finishing up a $30 million expansion and renovation, due to be finished in mid-April.
We visited just before they closed for the next few months and learned about tons of fun new changes that are coming!
Why? To make the museum bigger and better, and to support PLAY – an important cause because kids nowadays are spending 8 hours fewer per week playing than kids did in the 1980s!
There will be many changes, but here are 10 that our families are most excited about!
- The Scramble. This will be an all-new, four-story climbing adventure with ladders, slide and a cargo net platform 40-feet high! Parents will be able to stay close to their kiddos and it will be visible to drivers and passers-by!
- Sprouts. This will replace the old exhibit for toddlers, but will be bigger and with its own play area.
- Our World/Best Buy Gallery. Not the same Our World as before, but an all-new pretend town with a fire station, post office and food truck!
- Tip Top Terrace/Ecolab Gallery. This will be the new rooftop environmental gallery where you can view the city!
- Imaginopolis. An abstract play space to build your own story.
- Creativity Jam. Do collaborative projects in this maker space.
- Super Awesome Adventures. We love the name, but also what it will include – a LASER obstacle course, carpet skating and green screen. Perfect for the older kiddos!
- The Studio/Target Gallery. Kids can try out real tools and materials in this tinkering workshop.
- New cafe, coffee bar and gift shop! Coffee for the parents, goodies for the well-behaved kiddos – something for everyone.
- More visitor space. Remember how tight the spaces could get in the museum? Well, it’s expanding from 65,000 to 74,000 square feet, so there will be much more room for everyone, including those bulky strollers!
If you have a Twin Cities Kids Club membership, don’t worry! You’ll still be able to use it to save $2.00 per admission (up to 4) at the Mall of America location
, open until the downtown museum opens in mid-April!