Baltimore's Port Discovery children's museum will turn 10 in December, which is older than most of the kids who come through its doors, and it has launched a year of festivities to celebrate the milestone.
Museum leaders recently unveiled the first new permanent exhibit since the building opened -- a $400,000 aquatic playground called Wonders of Water. They've also scheduled a series of programs and events called Ten for Ten to mark the anniversary and give visitors different experiences throughout the year.
They're counting down to kindergarten in April, learning about robots in June and celebrating Hispanic heritage in July.
Built at a cost of $32 million, Port Discovery opened Dec. 29, 1998, with exhibits and activities spread over three levels inside Baltimore's historic Fish Market at 35 Market Place. Initial exhibits were designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, an arm of the company that runs Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
Today, Port Discovery has 34 full-time staffers, 35 to 75 part-timers depending on the season, and an annual budget of $3.8 million. We asked President and Chief Executive Officer Bryn Parchman about the anniversary and what's in store for the next 10 years. Why are you doing so much to call attention to Port Discovery's 10th anniversary?
We're calling attention to it because 10, in a kid's life -- double digits -- that's a big deal. Ten years for Port Discovery is a big deal. There are a lot of people who didn't think we'd make it to 10 years, and we're here and we're doing well. That's the message we want to get out. Port Discovery drew 415,000 visitors during its first year of operation, 313,000 the second and 268,000 the third. What is the attendance today?
It's stabilized at around 250,000 a year. If you look at children's museums around the country, we are No. 10 or 11 in terms of attendance, and we are not a top-10 market in terms of size. So that's a good number for us. We feel good about it. We're making the budget work at that number. You're breaking even?
We're breaking even from operations. How has Port Discovery changed over the past decade?
The first thing is the target age. We're focused now on [children ages] 2 to 10 years old, as opposed to 6 to 12. That's what we were [focused on] at the beginning.
We're also focused on community initiatives in ways that we weren't when we first opened, such as our Healthy First Saturdays program. On April 19, we're holding Countdown to Kindergarten. For every Baltimore City child who's entering kindergarten, we open the doors to the museum for free. We'll be doing vision screening, hearing [testing], teaching kids about safety in terms of riding the bus. We'll have other institutions here. The Walters will be here. The Aquarium will be here. Why did you shift the focus to younger children?
First, the demand was there. When Port Discovery opened, the idea was to push the envelope in terms of [attracting children] ages 10 to 12 and beyond. We had many more visitors coming at an early age than was originally anticipated, and we realized we needed to supplement what we offered in terms of programs and experiences for them.
Second, research was coming out and continues to come out that underscores the importance of working with children at an early age. A lot of other children's museums were aimed at ages 0 to 8 or 2 to 10. Our model was older than that. The 2-to-5 age range was not one of our core markets. We took a hard look at who was coming and what we could be offering and said we need to adjust. Port Discovery is the only children's museum with exhibits designed by Disney Imagineering. They include Adventure Expeditions, where kids cross a simulated Nile River, and Miss Perception's Mystery House, where kids follow clues to find a missing family. The Disney exhibits are sophisticated and immersive, but they're not aimed at younger visitors and don't have a particularly strong connection to Maryland. In retrospect, was Disney a good choice?
The way I look at it is, it gave us an advantage that set us apart and made a lot of people want to come here initially. It gave us something to build on. But then it was up to us as a team [to modify the museum to suit Port Discovery's target audience]. So we had that kind of uniqueness that was the Disney piece and then added what we know works for us as a community, as Baltimore and as an institution, and we've married that with the target age of who is coming here. We made this place our own. Many of your changes seem to involve exhibits and activities that are more practical and relevant to the real-world experiences of younger children in this region: a diner, a farm exhibit, a gas station, an exhibit about water. Was that the thinking?
It's been part of our learning as an institution. You have ancient Egypt and Miss Perception's and that piece of it. But then how do you take the base of what we have and make it our own? What's the right model here? That was the challenge. What distinguishes Port Discovery from other attractions for kids in Maryland?
We're unique in that we're multidisciplinary. We cross over different areas: the arts, history, culture, science, math. ... That's the wonderful thing about a children's museum. It's not collections-based. Our content is really the kids. What are the most popular exhibits and activities?
Adventure Expeditions is still one of the most popular [exhibits]. In MPT Studios, we do drumming circles, and that's one of the most popular activities. We have drums made out of recycled materials by one of our very creative staff members. And then we do story times. One of the most popular is something called kamishibai, which is based on the ancient art of Japanese storytelling. You also present traveling exhibits?
We typically have about three a year.
We have Robots coming this summer, based on the movie. This fall we have, from the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, an exhibit called How People Make Things. It's all about manufacturing, die-casting, forms. How does the red tractor get made? We'll have Joshua's Journey in the spring, which is about a black cowboy on the Chisholm Trail. It's neat because, culturally speaking, you haven't seen a lot of black cowboys, right? It's getting kids to think about that.
Curious George is coming, too. The price of admission can be a barrier to some children. How do you address that?
We have grant opportunities available for after-school visitors. We have programs that are funded through private foundations, corporations. We have a lot of partners, such as Baltimore Health Care Access and the Baltimore Leadership in Action Program, that are out there with the community groups. We're working with partners like that to get families and children here to the museum.
One of our goals is to build up our endowment to a place that allows us to offer access in a way that we aren't doing today. We have an endowment campaign that we're going to be launching soon, within the year. We have a wonderful pledge to that endowment, a seven-figure pledge, that's going to kick off the campaign. Our goal is to have a $10 million endowment over the next five years. How will Port Discovery be different in the next 10 years?
My hope is that it will be an even greater community resource than it is today. That we'll be accessible to more children. That we'll be able to open our doors to those who are need-based and enable them to come in for free in ways that we aren't able to do now.
Above all, we want to do it in a careful, thoughtful way that can preserve the integrity of the experience. I think we're doing it in the right way and, hopefully, a lasting way. We want to be here 10 years from now, talking about what a great resource this institution is for the community.
ed.gunts@baltsun.com