The Fairbanks Children’s Museum is on track to begin a multi-year move into a 15,000 square-foot space inside city hall – where the nonprofit also plans to start offering childcare. That’s after the Fairbanks City Council approved an ordinance Monday that authorizes a long-term lease with the organization.
Right now, the Fairbanks Children’s Museum operates out of a building downtown that’s within walking distance of city hall. Mayor Mindy O’Neall said its migration a few blocks up Cushman Street is a good fit.
“This is the people’s house. This is a community space. And if there’s a way we can bring activity into city hall – we can liven it up with children, it was originally a school – so bringing children back into the building, really, it feels good and makes a lot of sense,” she said.
The portion of city hall used to house the Boys and Girls Club, but the club stopped operations in December and moved out, leaving a gap in youth services.
The space includes a gym, cafeteria, classrooms and a basement, and the children’s museum expects to complete the transition from by 2029, when the lease at its current location ends.
The council’s vote comes after the city selected the children’s museum and Fairbanks Wellness Coalition’s joint application for providing youth programming and childcare at city hall. The application was in response to a request for proposals the city released late last year.
The RFP said preference would be given to applications that prioritized the enrollment of city employees’ children. Of 40 total childcare spots, the museum’s proposal included 20 prioritized for city staff, according to the museum’s executive director, Meredith Maple, who laid out the plans at a council work session earlier this month.
“Obviously, there’s a sincere need for childcare in Fairbanks, in the state, and the whole country. And we know that there’s a distinct need for that amongst City of Fairbanks employees. We also have that need amongst our employees at the museum,” she said.
Maple told the council that the cheaper monthly rent at city hall will help the museum invest in staff and offer more affordable, stable tuition when it starts childcare services.
The approved lease says monthly rent will be $1,000 for the first year, $2,000 for years two through five, and $4,000 for years six through 10. After the tenth year, the rent can be reviewed and adjusted. That’s compared to the roughly $11,000 per month the nonprofit museum pays at its current location, according to Maple.
She also said their current space is 7,000 square feet and that the move will give them room to expand exhibits and offer more summer camps and other programs. Maple said that will help the museum avoid hitting capacity, and that they’ve occasionally had to turn people away since attendance surged beginning in 2022.
“Which is the worst thing to have to do because that kid leaves crying,” she told the council.
A draft of the lease originally included a term of 75 years, though council members expressed concern about locking into an agreement that long. But Maple said inking a long-term lease is key for funders to commit to capital upgrades.
The council approved the 40-year lease Monday in a unanimous vote.
The museum will continue to operate at its current location during the multi-year move, according to Maple, who also said the gym will remain available to community sports groups for the next roughly three years, until the museum's exhibits start to get set up in the new space.