OMAHA — It started nearly a half-century ago as a traveling show in a station wagon, and a few transitions later, it settled in a revamped car dealership.

Now the Omaha Children’s Museum is moving on up — to a more touristy downtown, where its roughly $113 million new home is poised to rise four stories alongside another project also announced Thursday, October 24th.

Slated to join the museum on the three-acre site at Eighth and Douglas Streets is a NuStyle Development apartment building called The Beam. Stretching 16 levels high with 261 residences and a pool, the developer estimates his price tag at $87 million.

The pair of projects, along with parking garages to be funded and operated by the City of Omaha, are to be built on city property bordering Heartland of America’s Park at The Riverfront, on the north side of Douglas Street.

If all goes as planned, the 75,000-square-foot museum is to open in late 2027 and the market-rate apartments in 2028.

In The Action

Fawn Taylor, chief executive officer of the Children’s Museum, says the move will allow her team of about 48 full-timers and 28 part-timers to expand in number and better serve and appeal to youngsters and their caregivers.

Although the new riverfront digs will be 15,000 square feet larger than the existing museum at 20th and Howard Streets, Taylor expects it to seem like much more. Unlike the current facility, which was repurposed, the new structure will be purpose-built with input from early child care experts.

“Nebraska is home to some of the nation’s leading experts on early childhood development, who are working with us to plan for the new museum, from the building to the exhibits to the programming,” she said.

Taylor expects greater accessibility along the planned streetcar route and the ORBT bus line.

“By being in the middle of all of the things happening on the Riverfront, the skate ribbon, the Kiewit Luminarium, the parks, hotels and new development, we also will have more foot traffic,” said Taylor.

Programming, outreach and admission will tap into diverse communities, she said, including those typically underserved.

The new museum is to be funded with private and philanthropic dollars. Partners include nonprofit Heritage Omaha. Longtime backers and volunteers Susan and Mike Lebens have a lead role and have spent the past year traveling to other children’s museums.

Susan Lebens said supporters are confident that Omaha’s new hands-on, interactive museum will be “incredibly fun and full of learning opportunities that [are] unlike anything else in the country right now.”

Said Lebens: “We’re proud to play a role in taking what started in 1976 as a children’s museum operating out of a station wagon into its next chapter, ensuring it can serve area children and their caregivers for generations to come.”

‘Year-Found, Family-Friendly’

Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert joined museum officials Thursday in announcing the projects, which she expects will add to the downtown momentum.

“This entire development fits right in with all the year-round family-friendly activities at the surrounding parks, museums and entertainment venues downtown,” said Stothert.

For its part, the City of Omaha is to build and operate two garages and a surface lot offering a total of about 600 stalls for use by tenants, museum patrons and the public. The city is to pay $26 million, using lease purchase bonds.

One of the planned garages is a stand-alone, multi-level structure on the northeast portion of the site that is to hold about 310 cars. Roughly 90 surface area stalls are to be linked to that facility.

The other garage area is the bottom four levels of The Beam apartment high-rise. Those floors are to contain about 200 stalls.

On top of the parking floors, NuStyle plans 12 stories of wood timber apartments. The developer has applied for $13 million in public tax-increment financing to help defray its costs of the development.

“We know that the new City of Omaha parking garage will get plenty of use from museum guests, Beam tenants and everyone visiting downtown,” Stothert said.

Todd Heistand, who owns NuStyle with his wife, Mary, said the project would not be possible if not for TIF and the streetcar.

Heistand also is redeveloping the former Central Park Plaza office complex into the nearby 700-unit Duo apartments at 15th and Douglas Streets. The City of Omaha committed to build and own a parking garage at that site, as well.

One of the city’s oldest and busiest developers of the urban core, NuStyle requested $26.5 million in tax-increment financing to help pull off the Duo, which is to be done in phases and to be completed in 2027.

Urban Core Momentum

A City of Omaha news release Thursday, October 24th, said that since the streetcar was announced in 2022, several urban core developments have started.

The statement said that pending city approval of The Beam and six additional projects in various stages of approval (the six were not identified), the amount of new investment along the streetcar corridor is estimated to rise to more than $1.5 billion.

Redevelopment agreements for the museum and the apartments are expected to go to the Omaha Planning Board in November and the City Council in December.

Children’s Museum leaders said the museum will continue to operate at its current location during fundraising for and construction of the new space.

The public can help shape the new museum by taking a survey at www.OCMRiverFront.org. Surveys for kids and adults are available in English and Spanish and open through Dec. 15. Participants can enter to win a one-year family membership.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/10/24/new-childrens-museum-high-rise-a...