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Cleveland's children's museum prepares to move to its new home
The old museum closes this week
Story by BRIAN BULL


 
This is the last week before the museum closes and moves three miles west.
Courtesy of Sarah Jane Tribble
Come the New Year, Cleveland’s hands-on, interactive learning facility is shutting down. For Ohio Public Radio, WCPN's Brian Bull reports administrators at the Children’s Museum aren’t sure exactly when they’ll re-open in their new home.
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Since 1986, the museum with its distinctive double-peak tent design has stood out among other more traditional buildings in University Circle.  
 
But as of January 3rd, the museum is closing its doors. During these last few days, the exhibit space is enjoying a final hurrah, with crowds of families cramming in for the holidays, their busiest time of year, according to executive director, Maria Campanelli.
 
MCampanelli01: “I think it’s just really important that parents come for one last time, and especially to the child….they can talk to the child about saying goodbye, and kinda talk a little bit more about what’s to come in the future of the museum.” (:10)
 
That future meaning a new, bigger space three miles away, in the Stager (“stagger”)-Beckwith Mansion near East 40th and Euclid.  Campanelli says there’s no set date yet for a grand opening, but figures it’ll happen in 2017. 
 
In the meantime, she says they’ll become a “Museum without walls.”
 
MCampanelli02:  “We have programs scheduled within the Cleveland Public Library, some of our STEM-based programs.  We are definitely committed to going to University Circle’s ‘Wade Oval Wednesdays’, and we have more people who are reaching out to us, asking us to come to their events." 
 
During the transition period, museum staff has been cut from 13 full-time employees to just five, but Campanelli says some may be rehired once the new space is complete.
 
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