The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum and Grand Rapids Public Library are pursuing a joint redevelopment of the library’s downtown surface parking lot, which could eventually lead to the children’s museum relocation.

Grand Rapids Children’s Museum CEO Maggie Lancaster and Grand Rapids Public Library Executive Director John McNaughton presented conceptual development plans this morning to the Grand Rapids City Commission’s Committee of the Whole. 

The two organizations envision a multi-level parking structure on site that would increase the parking capacity of the existing 110-space surface lot. An adjacent community hub building would also be included with programming space for both the children’s museum and GRPL, as well as some green space. Fishbeck is designing the project that’s now in the conceptual stage. 

“We are currently continuing to have lines out our door and turning people away, not being able to have programming the way that our community deserves,” Lancaster told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business. “We are a respite for families and we really hope to expand our footprint because it would help our community.”

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The museum’s current location at 11 Sheldon Ave. NE has about 14,000 square feet of space, which executives hope to grow to about 60,000-70,000 square feet, Lancaster said. If the redevelopment progresses, the children’s museum could eventually move from its nearby location on Sheldon once the new space is fully operational, Lancaster said. 

The children’s museum conducted a feasibility study that showed its current space could be repurposed as an early child care center in the future, Lancaster added. 

The redevelopment plan has no timeline or cost estimate yet, but most Grand Rapids city commissioners voiced approval of the development on Tuesday. No votes were taken after the briefing, and Commissioner Drew Robbins was absent. 

Next steps will involve city staff looking at the financial feasibility of the conceptual plans for the city-owned parking lot and putting together an ownership structure of the project, so the library and children’s museum can start fundraising for the project, said Grand Rapids Deputy City Manager Kate Berens. 

With the commission’s comments of approval, Lancaster said the museum and library plan to ramp up their community engagement efforts for the project. 

Discussions on redeveloping the library’s downtown parking lot, also referred to as the Ryerson lot, date back to 2016 when the city considered building a parking structure there to increase the city’s downtown parking supply. In 2022, conceptual plans called for constructing a mixed-use project with a parking garage, but the project lacked a partner and fell through, Berens said.

“We’ve talked about this as an incredibly important spot in the heart of our city with incredible potential and opportunity to meet a number of growing demands,” Mayor Rosalynn Bliss said at the meeting. “A lot has happened since then and I’m excited to see some of the ideas come forward today.” 

Even though the initial plans presented in 2022 were unsuccessful, it kicked off a partnership between children’s museum and library leadership to create a vision of what they wanted to see on the site. 

The project would allow the Grand Rapids Public Library to expand the needs for its history center, add “much-needed” community space for teen programming, and hopefully also allow for the expansion of the library’s children’s department, McNaughton said. 

“We’ve been here before talking about the parking lot, but this is a different opportunity,” McNaughton said. “This feels different because it’s very much community-based and an opportunity to expand for the right reasons.”

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