Navy Pier's Kids Museum Weighs Grant Park Move

BY ANDREW HERRMANN

A cornerstone of Navy Pier for 20 years, the Chicago Children's Museum is exploring a move to a new building just east of Millennium Park.

Museum officials today will ask the Park District Board's permission to study the feasibility of relocating to Grant Park's Daley Bicentennial Plaza.

Supporters tout the move as a way to shine some light on Daley Bicentennial Plaza, a lonely patch of Grant Park.

The Park District hasn't signed off on the move yet. But officials are intrigued with the plan that would provide the district with a new 20,000-square-foot fieldhouse, courtesy of the Children's Museum, said parks spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner.

Sketches show 4-story structure

The current fieldhouse at 337 E. Randolph was built in the mid-1970s and suffers from a leaky roof, said Bob O'Neill of the Grant Park Advisory Council, which supports the move.

Preliminary sketches for a new Children's Museum reveal a four-story structure, though much of it would be underground. The museum would grow from its current 57,000 square feet at Navy Pier to 100,000 square feet at the proposed location.

In an interview Tuesday, museum president and CEO Peter England said "as of today, Navy Pier is still an option'' but he noted that the current location becomes very crowded during the peak summer months.

England did not estimate the cost of a new museum but said construction would take about 18 months. He hoped the feasibility study would be complete in a few months.

"It's a win-win for the Park District,'' said England.

Parks group backs concept

O'Neill said some questions have been raised about the future of an existing ice rink at Daley Bicentennial Plaza. O'Neill acknowledged that there is an ice rink at Millennium Park just a couple of blocks away but said that rink serves tourists while the Daley skating area is geared toward neighborhood use.

Erma Tranter, president of the watchdog group Friends of the Parks, said the group "supports the concept'' of the museum as long as it is primarily below grade. During construction, the museum also would need to find space to host park activities currently being held at the Daley Bicentennial Plaza building, she added.

The museum was founded as a nonprofit organization in 1982 in response to program cutbacks at Chicago Public Schools. After operating at a variety of sites around the city, including a Park District facility in Lincoln Park, the museum moved to Navy Pier in 1986. It draws 500,000 annually to its hands-on, education-focused exhibits.

The chairman of the museum's board is Gigi Pritzker Pucker, a member of the Pritzker family, which donated millions for the construction of Millennium Park. The BP Bridge connects Millennium Park to the proposed museum site at Daley Bicentennial Plaza.