Great River Children’s Museum Set to Open June 10th in St. Cloud

(KNSI) – After nearly thirteen years of planning, the Great River Children’s Museum in downtown St. Cloud is ready for visitors from far and wide.

The doors will open to the public on Tuesday, June 10th, with plans for a grand opening celebration weekend from June 20th through the 22nd. The museum merged three buildings into one to create 31,000 square feet of space along a 100-block of 7th Avenue South, making it the second largest such museum in the state.

What began as a conversation around a dinner table among soon-to-be-retired educators in 2012 started to take shape in 2018 when Liberty Bank donated its downtown location for the museum’s future home.

GRCM has eight interactive exhibits that let children and their caregivers explore and learn at their own pace. The heart of the museum is the 30-foot-high Climber to the Clouds station, a unique feature where kids can reach for the sky and tower over the crowds. Kids can also splash in the 35-foot water table called Great Big River to learn about the mighty Mississippi or the river’s origins in the Headwaters exhibit. The Everyday Engineering station will let kids tweak and torque gears and gadgets galore, or build in the Tinker Workshop to create something. Take time to soak up the sun in the Oxbow Outdoor adventure area and the Great Explorations Park for toddlers. There are also program spaces, a teaching kitchen, a community room and more.

The goal is to educate kids by letting them create, explore, discover, and be inspired through play. The activities will inspire kids on field trips and during outreach activities that will bring the museum’s programming to parks, festivals, schools, and other community venues.

The total project cost is around $17 million and employs around 30 people. Most of the money came from donations and grants. The GRCM is anticipated to attract around 130,000 guests a year. For more information or to get passes, click here.

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