MANSFIELD — Fred Boll just needs 300 sheets of birch plywood.
It’s all that’s standing between him and the completion of more than 100 new exhibits in the new space for Little Buckeye Children’s Museum at 175 W. Third Street.
Apparently, Richland County only has about 120 sheets of plywood available. And because of booming lumber demands from homebuilders and do-it-yourselfers with plenty of time on their hands thanks to the pandemic, the price has gone up from $22 to $66 per sheet.
In the last six months, the building at 175 W. Third Street has been gutted and completely redesigned. It has received a new roof, new parking lot, completely remodeled bathrooms and HVAC system, new flooring, and new lighting and electrical work. Repairs were also made to the windows and the elevator.
He just needs that damn plywood.
“We had to turn it back into a building,” said Boll, the director of Little Buckeye. “Now we get to build the fun stuff.”
This month begins phase 2 of construction for Little Buckeye’s new location, and will consist of building the exhibits the museum is known for. Conceptual drawings for the first-floor exhibits, which are designed for children ages 2-10 by Kevin Haring at Splashmakers, have been released. Concept drawings for the second-floor gallery, which will house exhibits for individuals ages 10 and up, are being finalized now.
After postponing construction for nearly a year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Boll is ready to get back to the business of play.
“Playing makes you smile, makes you happy, makes you laugh,” he said. “There are people who go through all day and don’t laugh and smile, and I feel sorry for them. The world needs more play.”
Construction on the new museum originally began pre-COVID in January 2020, but when the pandemic forced closures in March 2020, construction was halted by state mandate. Little Buckeye was forced to re-bid the project in November 2020, adding an additional $750,000 in construction costs.
Boll visited 46 children’s museums across the midwest in research for the new exhibits, traveling from New York to Missouri to Kentucky to Michigan. He learned what does (and doesn’t) work, and how to create the most unique exhibits for Little Buckeye.
The biggest change coming to Little Buckeye is the addition of exhibits that are catered to older children (and childlike adults). The entire upstairs area is dedicated to exhibits that have both play and competitive elements.
“There’s a lack of stuff for that teenage age group to do that is safe and age-appropriate,” Boll said. “There’s just a missing hole for that in our community.”
Play is the work of children, Boll says. It’s how you first learned to cooperate with others, how to do basic skills, and how to use your imagination. How many of you have pretended the floor was lava and climbed all over the furniture in your house?
“As we get older, we stop playing and we stop using those sections of our brain,” Boll said. “Play is a safe way to induce those endorphins in your brain. If people would play more, they’d be less stressed.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE IMAGINATION DISTRICT?
The story of the Imagination District began more than five years ago, when Boll and Mike Miller, CEO of the Renaissance Theatre, completed the Osborne Meese Academy at the Richland County Foundation. The training program is aimed at increasing the capacity of nonprofit organizations.
The first mention publicly of the Imagination District was in June 2018, when Rand Smith, president of the Renaissance Board of Directors, said Park Avenue West would go through “a transformation not seen in decades.”
The idea of the district began as a collaborative project between Little Buckeye Children’s Museum and the Renaissance Performing Arts Association to renovate two adjacent buildings on Park Avenue West — Theatre 166, which officially opened in October 2018, and the former IBM building at 174 Park Ave. West that Little Buckeye purchased in December 2018. The building had previously sat vacant for 15 years.
At that time, the museum also took possession of two properties owned by the Richland County Land Bank. These vacant lots are located directly behind 174 Park Ave. West and are expected to be used for additional parking and for a playscape, which is a more natural version of a playground.
The initial vision of the district continues to evolve, Boll said.
“We’re getting close to accomplishing that vision – we’re not there yet, but it’s getting close. So how do we grow it beyond that? How do we impact more of our community?” Boll said. “Where it’s going to evolve to, I don’t know exactly because it’s not mine, it’s the community’s. But it’s a great concept and it has been practically used for good. And we can evolve it to something else, something greater than its parts.”
The joint capital campaign between the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum and the Renaissance Performing Arts Association for the Imagination District announced its successful conclusion in February 2021, just as state mandates on construction of museums was lifted, and construction resumed.
The goal was to raise $6 million; $4.5 million for the new Little Buckeye museum and $1.5 million for the Renaissance Education Center. In February 2019, the Richland County Foundation pledged up to $1 million to the Imagination District’s capital campaign; a year later, the Shelby Foundation awarded $25,000 to the Imagination District.
Then, in December 2020, the state of Ohio’s capital budget included $1 million from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission for the Imagination District’s expansion. That fundraising goal has now been met, and surpassed.
Boll said the museum has spent $2.8 million on the project so far, 96% of which has been spent inside Richland County with local companies.
“Typically in the museum industry you’re working with museum exhibit builders in Indianapolis or Chicago,” Boll said. “We’re trying to work with local individuals to build our exhibits here locally. So that’s an interesting process; some of the crazy ideas I ask them to build, they’re thinking we build walls, we don’t build Hot Wheel tracks with ramps, loop-de-loops and pinball launchers. It’s going to take us longer to do it that way, but then our dollars impact where we live.”
One goal of the Imagination District has always been to use it as a catalyst to connect the western edge of the city with the rest of downtown. An experimental connection will take place from Sept. 20 to Oct. 1 with a temporary “linear park” that will connect the Carrousel District to the new Little Buckeye parking lot.
Boll said he hopes the District will have an economic impact in a way that will encourage development of vacant properties along along Park Avenue West; the best example being in February, when Imagination Child Care opened at 100 Park Ave. West, its name inspired by its proximity to the Imagination District. Little Buckeye was also involved in helping the Richland County Land Bank receive an EPA grant to clean up the former Swan Cleaners building.
In addition, in October 2019, the former Rainbow Mortgage building at 154 Park Ave. West was reduced to a pile of rubble, making way for the space between the Renaissance and Theatre 166 to be converted into a green space plaza shared by the Renaissance and Little Buckeye.
The Renaissance will use the space for outdoor performances; Little Buckeye will hold classes and programming and possibly outdoor exhibits. The back of the plaza will have a space for food truck parking.
By the project’s completion in the first half of 2022, it is estimated the Imagination District will serve nearly 220,000 youth and their families, provide for as many as 15 full-time and 25 part-time staff, and have a total economic impact of $7.7 million.
