BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The North Country Children’s Museum’s $2.5 million, second floor expansion, which will feature a 2/3 sized Amish homestead, a maple tree forest climber, and a bubble window lookout in the roof, is expected to get started next month.

The museum director Sharon Vegh Williams said design work by Potsdam architect Brooks Washburn for the project has been completed, and the project went out to bid Wednesday, Nov. 30. The goal is to start work on the project in January. Williams said they hope to have the second floor expansion completed by December 2023.

“There are sort of two sides to this project,” Williams said. She said fabrication of the exhibits is taking place offsite for later installation. The other part of the project involves onsite building work which could take about 6 months. “The architect seems confident that it’s a six month turnaround,” Williams said.

NCCM is working with world renowned exhibit designers Blue Rhino Design of Toronto and with exhibit fabricators in Chicago. Blue Rhino has designed exhibits for Ontario Science Center in Toronto and other exhibits around the world.

A centerpiece of the second floor exhibits will be a large Maple Forest Climber with smaller attached scientific exhibits. Children will be able to climb the tree structure up to a bubble glass look-out in the roof to look over the village.

Another part of the expansion will involve construction of a 2/3 sized Amish cottage by a local Amish builder for the Swartzentruber Amish Home Exhibit. The exhibit will feature a small saltbox style 2-story Amish house in one section of the second floor of the museum. The house exhibit, an example of place-based education which showcases local resources and concepts to teach subject matter, will feature authentic Amish cultural items and educational tools so visitors can learn about the local Amish community.

The expansion, which will double the size of the museum, is geared for an 8- to 12-year-old age group, and will also include a Music & Sound lab, an additional program room and a family resource room.

Williams said the museum has received input on design ideas for the expansion from a focus group of 8- to 12-year-olds.

The project is budgeted at $2.5 million, Williams said, but bids have yet to come in.

Funding to pay for the work has been secured through several grant resources induing the state office of Home and Community Renewal, the National Endowment for the Arts and the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services. Numerous local private and corporate donors have also chipped in.

“We are 92 percent funded, but we still have some funding to go,” Williams said.

Any individual, business or organization seeking to donate to the project can visit https://bit.ly/3udFmBb .

To learn more about corporate giving and exhibit naming opportunities contact Williams at

director@northcountrychildrensmuseum.org .