Marbles Kid Museum wants to expand ‘mothership’ and grow beyond downtown Raleigh

Marbles Kids Museum wants $3.6 million from county taxpayers to expand its downtown footprint and reach out into other parts of Wake County.

Leaders of the children’s museum made their pitch to the Wake County Board of Commissioners Monday afternoon.

“The majority of our weekend days are at capacity,” said Jonathan Frederick, new president and CEO of Marbles. “We have to turn people away. And that’s been the one bummer about my new job. On a busy weekend to have to tell a family that Marbles is sold out. And they have to come back on another day. So that’s really what we want to talk about.”

Marbles, which opened in 2007 after Exploris and Playscape, merged is located on East Hargett Street near Moore Square in downtown Raleigh.

While it own the play annex outright, Wake County owns the museum and theater buildings with Marbles operating under a long-term lease.

Museum expansion

The museum leaders believe it will take about $7.2 million to enhance its courtyard, renovate and add a two-story exhibit space to its downtown campus.

They are asking Wake County to cover half of the cost over three years. All of the commissioners spoke in favor of the idea, but a formal vote was not held at Monday’s work session.

Climbing structures, interactive art, shade, greenspace and lighting would be added to Marbles’ current courtyard. This would be a free, expanded outdoor educational play area.

There are plans to also convert the Transform Tree Tunes courtyard into a two-story exhibit and program space that would give the museum enough space to accommodate 500 more children and adults each day. It would allow for more children to participate in the museum’s popular summer camp programs.

“We know how important outdoor play is to children and families,” Frederick said. “We know how important it is to their well being, to their physical health, and how exciting it can be to connect families.”

Beyond downtown

Marbles is also asking for $100,000 to study expanding into other parts of Wake County.

“We’ve been approached by several community partners who have an interest in us having a presence beyond downtown in places where our county is growing, and where there are gaps in out-of-school learning opportunities,“ said Hardin Engelhardt, the museum’s chief learning officer.

The idea is to supplement Marbles current offerings by working with partners in parts of the county that are growing, she said. A presentation shared with the county show potential partners including the towns of Morrisville, Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon so far.

Once the funding has been confirmed, the study could begin later this year.

“One of the things that often we talked about was making sure we do this in a way that doesn’t hurt the hub,” said Wake County Commissioner Matt Calabria. “And so it’s really heartening to see that you all are looking at enhancements here and looking at making the mothership experience even better, while making things geographically more accessible and diversifying the experience as well.”