AGENDA #3(a)4

January 3, 2007

Dear Mayor Foy and Members of the Chapel Hill Town Council,

Kidzu Children’s Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides young children, families and schools with dynamic, hands-on learning experiences through interactive exhibits and programs.  Since opening in March 2006, Kidzu has been located at 105 E. Franklin Street in a temporary space of 2,700 square feet, donated to the museum until August 2007. The following is a proposal to lease 179 E. Franklin Street, (the court house and post office building) to Kidzu Children’s Museum. Below we outline why this proposal offers a win-win situation for the Town, Kidzu, and the young children and families of our community.

Kidzu Children's Museum Provides Substantial Benefits to Our Young Children, Families, Educational Institutions and Community

Kidzu Children’s Museum has enjoyed enormous success since opening its doors at 105 E. Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill on March 7, 2006.  The museum has provided much-needed playful learning experiences for the young children, families, schools, preschools and child care centers of our community and is benefiting our community in many other ways.

Kidzu has brought families with young children back to downtown, attracting over 22,000 visitors in just over nine months.  We bring the best of the nation to our community by hosting traveling exhibits from top children’s museums around the country such as the Maurice Sendak exhibit ("Where the Wild Things Are") in 2006 and "Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood" in 2007.  Kidzu shares the best of our community with our children by offering programs that spotlight local talent (e.g., local artists, authors, musicians, educators including UNC faculty, and other community members) and displays work of local artists side by side with nationally prominent artists and authors (e.g., Orange County Partnership for Young Children art show, "The North Carolina Alphabet," and coming in January, the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission children’s show "Pop Art Recycled").  Kidzu attracts visitors from all over the Triangle and tourists from all over the country (visitors from 41 states and several countries).  Kidzu is a model for community-university partnerships, for instance, providing volunteer, internship and work-study opportunities to UNC students, serving as a teaching resource for UNC faculty, and offering partnership programs, for instance, with the Ackland Art Museum.  And Kidzu has been nationally recognized for our work with mentions in Newsweek and the American Association of Museums' Museum News.

Kidzu Needs a Larger, Permanent Home to Meet the Demand for Our Services

The demand for the museum is outpacing our ability to serve visitors in our current 2,700 square foot space.  Kidzu is seeking a larger, permanent home for the museum. We will continue to operate until we move into our permanent home. A larger home for the museum will allow us to serve a broader age range, create our own permanent exhibits, and accommodate more school, preschool and child care groups and become a lasting resource for our community.  Kidzu is exploring potential locations throughout Chapel Hill, Carrboro and beyond, but we would love to remain in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill, if possible. 

We are petitioning the Town Council to lease, under terms similar to those of the post office or court house, 179 E. Franklin Street to Kidzu Children’s Museum in a mixed use project that would maintain the Post Office in this site beginning January 1, 2009. Additionally we would like to use a portion of the space on the rooftop of the adjacent Wallace Parking Deck for outdoor exhibits, programming, and/or related uses also beginning January 1, 2009.

We are inviting the Town of Chapel Hill to join Kidzu and our other community, university and business partners in providing an outstanding entertainment, educational and cultural destination for young children and families, right in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill. By joining this partnership, the Town of Chapel Hill will help complete the circle of support for the young children and families in our community.  The Town will also be making a prudent investment in the future of our children and the future of our town.

Our Historic Downtown Needs a Family-Friendly Anchor to Help it Thrive

The 100 block of East Franklin Street is the heart and historic symbol of our community and offers many fine restaurants, retail establishments and outstanding cultural attractions such as the Ackland Art Museum and the Morehead Planetarium.  The proximity to the University of North Carolina adds to the richness and charm of our downtown.  In spite of these attractions, the most important block in our town is "bookended" by two prominent, largely vacant buildings.  Those vacancies contribute little to the vitality of our downtown.  The ground floor of the former First Union building has been vacant since the Wachovia/First Union merger.  On the other end of the block, 179 E. Franklin Street is significantly underutilized. The primary tenant for the majority of the space in 179 E. Franklin Street is the Orange County Court House.  The courthouse is open one day a week, leaving the majority of the city-owned anchor virtually closed 6 days a week.

Locating Kidzu in 179 E. Franklin Street creates an excellent win-win situation for the museum and the town because it will maximize the use of one of our town's most important buildings and provide an engaging, family-friendly, tourist-friendly destination in the center of the town's historic commercial district.  As Kidzu has already demonstrated in our smaller location, the museum attracts families with young children, an important segment of our community that tended to avoid downtown until Kidzu opened this year.  Families are critically important to the success of a downtown.  While university students lend their own wonderful energy to our community, our downtown cannot thrive on their presence alone.  Families broaden the fabric of our community and offer consistent, year-round patronage not tied to the academic calendar.  Families with young children are particularly valuable, not only because of the energy they bring, but also because young children's schedules complement those of college students, with little ones most active when college students are in class and typically tucked in bed for naptime or a good night's sleep when college students are most interested in spending time downtown (lunch, dinner, late nights).

Children’s Museums Revitalize Downtowns: Other College Towns Have Enjoyed Enormous Benefits From Investing in Their Local Children's Museums

A number of major state university towns like ours have turned to children’s museums to help maintain a thriving downtown because of the family demographic that they attract.  These communities have enjoyed substantial benefits from housing children's museums in their downtowns.  They have also shown a commitment to ensuring the success of their local children's museums by providing free or virtually free space in prime locations that are normally beyond the budget capacities of nonprofit museums like Kidzu.   Hands-on, interactive museums for children are located on the equivalent of our Franklin Street in cities such as Charlottesville, VA ($100/month lease of 10,000 ft2 building from the city), Madison, WI (moving from 8,500 ft2 to 40,000 ft2 privately donated building on State Street), and Ann Arbor, MI (10,000 ft2 firehouse and land for a 25,000 ft2 addition, both given by the city). 

Bringing families downtown has proven important for at least two reasons:

1. Children’s museums have a direct economic impact on their immediate areas/regions.  When families visit downtown, they eat in local restaurants, they shop in local stores. (In many cases Kidzu visitors are local residents who, according to surveys, have not visited downtown in more than a year.)
   
   Sample annual attendance numbers from museums of interest:

Hands On Museum (Ann Arbor)	207,000 visitors/year
Madison Children’s Museum	85,000 visitors/year
Greensboro Children’s Museum	136,000 visitors/year
Museum of Life & Science (Durham)	272,000 visitors/year

2. Children and families change images.  Children create an image of happiness.  When you see a child walking down the street wearing a hat made of a paper plate and crepe paper, it is almost impossible not to smile.  Families walking around downtowns also create a feeling of safety and encourage others to visit.  One of the strongest images from the recent Chamber of Commerce-organized trip to Madison was that of a family-oriented downtown.  The families and children walking up and down State Street and picnicking on the State house lawn created an image of happiness downtown.  So many of the issues that currently affect downtown Chapel Hill are issues of perception.  Families and children change those perceptions.

Children’s Museums are a proven “best utilization” of public space across the country and in other communities seen as comparable to Chapel Hill.

A Kidzu Expansion Site in the Heart of Downtown Chapel Hill: A Win-Win Situation for the Town, for Kidzu, and for Our Community

While the Kidzu Board of Directors is considering locations outside of downtown (and outside of Chapel Hill), our experience downtown has been excellent, and if possible we would like to continue to stay. We believe that the proposed arrangement offers a win-win situation for both Kidzu and for the Town of Chapel Hill.  Some of the many potential reasons include:

1. Kids like visiting our downtown!  Chapel Hill has a historic and fun downtown but until Kidzu opened, young kids did not often visit it.  Kids love a day out going to our local restaurants and getting a treat from one of the local stores. Going downtown is a great event: Great for local business, great for kids.
2. The central location guarantees great bus access for all members of the community.  Riding on the bus is also a special treat for kids.  Because they are small, children don’t get to see so much from their car seats.  Riding in the bus gives kids the opportunity to see so much more:  Great for the environment, great for kids.
3. The proximity to UNC allows Kidzu to maintain and expand our partnerships with the University, which strengthens Kidzu as an institution, allows us to provide the highest quality educational offerings to young children while keeping our costs low, and is another way of sharing the best of our community with our young children.  For instance, UNC provides Kidzu with ready access to hundreds of student volunteers who allow us to keep our staffing costs to a minimum.  In the nine months that Kidzu has been open there have been partnerships/programs in coordination with over a dozen UNC official and unofficial entities.  Some of the ways that Kidzu works with UNC include: each month Kidzu has over 40 student volunteers on the floor of the museum; before each exhibit opens a group of students and teachers from the FPG Child Development Institute come to “test run” the exhibit; classes from UNC School of Education visit the museum; we have co-developed arts programming with The Ackland Art Museum, to name just a few: Great for UNC, great for the kids.
4. The visible location saves the museum thousands of dollars on marketing because we do not have to spend money advertising our location.  Visitors from out of town walking down Franklin Street frequently are seeking activities for their families: over 15% of our visitors are from outside the Triangle or from out of state.  These visitors don’t have to look very far before they find Kidzu:  Great for tourism, great for kids.

To have the anchor spaces on Franklin Street see so little traffic, remain empty, and be a use of limited government office space is a substantial disservice to our community, downtown merchants, property owners, residents and anyone else who believes Franklin Street is the cultural and economic center of Chapel Hill.  Having Kidzu in 179 E. Franklin Street puts young people and children at the heart of our community!

Our Proposal

Renovations.  If inspection, analysis and other assessments indicate that the project is viable, architects will be hired to design the best possible children’s museum layout.  We anticipate approximately one year for building renovations.

We propose that the Post Office would remain in the building, possibly in the same space or possibly in reconfigured space based upon mutual agreement of the town, postal service and Kidzu.

Wallace Parking Deck Rooftop.  The rooftop of the Wallace Parking Deck is terribly underutilized.  If Kidzu is located in the adjacent building on 179 E. Franklin Street, a small walking bridge to the rooftop would be considered.  There are many ways that this space could be put to use including outdoor exhibits, programming, and picnic facilities.  A more complete inspection and analysis would need to be done to determine requirements and feasibility of making this area child-safe.

Term.  The minimum term will be determined after a complete study estimating the costs associated with the renovation is completed.  Because the cost of the anticipated renovations would be born primarily by Kidzu, the minimum length of the term must be long enough to justify the amortized cost of the renovation. 

In Closing

By keeping Kidzu downtown, Chapel Hill puts children at the heart of our community.  This is remarkable opportunity for our town to be proactive in revitalizing downtown and at the same time help families and our young children for many years to come.  We look forward to exploring this opportunity with you further.

Thank you for considering our proposal.

Sincerely,

Kidzu Board of Directors

Jonathan Mills – President	Kimberly Call	Tim Noonan
Sandra Rich – Vice President	Sarah Ederle	Debra Zinn
Christopher Rice – Treasurer	Kathleen Irvin	Paige Zinn
Scott O’Brien – Secretary	Deshera Mack
Benjamin Balderas	Dana McMahan
Cathy Maris, Executive Director