Transforming play: The journey to creating an Adirondack children’s museum

How one parent’s vision became PlayADK, with a community-centered approach to its project

By Mike Lynch

In Saranac Lake, a small nonprofit is going ahead with plans to create a children’s museum and family resource center. 

The planned destination for PlayADK is a two-story warehouse on Depot Street in Saranac Lake, which is across the street from the Union Depot, a hub for the Adirondack Rail Trail. The nonprofit plans to renovate the structure and make it a state-of-the-art facility. The Adirondack Carousel, another attraction for youngsters, is just a few hundred feet down the road. 

The 15,000-square-foot museum is the brainchild of Saranac Lake resident Rob Carr, former exhibits and interpretive programs manager for the Wild Center in Tupper Lake. He is now the executive director of the nonprofit PlayADK.

Based on studies, PlayADK’s museum will attract 200,000 people a year, said Carr. It would be the first children’s museum in the Adirondack Park. Right now, the nonprofit runs children’s programming at the Clubhouse, a rented space on Main Street. 

Below is a question-and-answer session with Carr. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you come up with the idea to start a children’s museum? 

I spent the majority of my career working in museums as an exhibit designer and an educator and administrator. Most of my work has been designing programs and experiences for older audiences with a more cognitive objective. To be honest, I sort of thumbed my nose at children’s museums and looked at them as like glorified playgrounds. I didn’t completely understand their value. I was more interested in developing creative ways to educate audiences about natural science and heritage and history.

But then I had a child, and through the experience of just being a new parent, I learned really quickly how critically important children’s museums are. In fact, now I’ve really come full circle, and I believe that they’re the most effective and worthwhile and formal education institutions that exist because they support an essential developmental need for a vulnerable and very often underserved audience. 

Opportunities for young children to engage in meaningful and developmentally appropriate play and exploration are absolutely essential for furthering healthy, social, emotional, cognitive development. Play is the work of childhood. And children’s museums are designed specifically to meet that critical community need.

Can you give me an example of some of the exhibits? And what opportunities will be available at the museum?  

Children’s museums can be all about that play, as I mentioned, that’s the real work of childhood and that’s the true mission of children’s museums. So we’re gonna have lots of different play-based experiences available. The museum is going to be about 15,000 square feet, and 10,000 square feet of that will be dedicated to interactive, exhibit spaces, dedicated to hands-on experiences, designed for play that will welcome the whole child mind, body and spirit to embrace a world of exploration and discovery.

There’s going to be imaginative play. Things like a make-believe market, logging camp, a little laboratory, and a campsite where children can engage in pretend play and act out roles, interact with others, get lost in make-believe worlds. There’s going to be lots of opportunities for physical play, like climbing and adventure and sculptures. We’re going to make sure that we have exhibits designed for people with all levels of accessibility and abilities. And lots of all of it will be packaged in a way to encourage parents and care providers to play alongside their children.

What’s the timeline for this project? What are some key dates coming up?

I’ll just preface it by saying that our timeline very much depends on how well we meet our fundraising goals moving forward. We’ve done really well, so far. We’ve raised well over $3 million (toward our $8 to $9 million budget). And we are pretty far into the pre-construction process. We are just finishing up schematic design for the building and sites and the conceptual design process for the exhibits and experiences.

We’re going to have a whole new vision package for the project completed by the beginning of the summer. Once we finish that, we’re going to move right into design development and then through the rest of the pre-construction process. We hope to wrap up the pre-construction process in 2025. In early 2026, hopefully, will we expect to break ground and move through construction with an opening date planned for 2028.

Will there be a fee to use the museum?

There’s going to be a fee, but we are dedicated to providing this opportunity for all types of visitors and we want to make it accessible to everybody. Franklin County is one of the poorest counties in the state. As part of this project, we’re creating a family center that’s going to provide free resources and programming for local residents. That’s a really important part of the scope of our work. We’re already doing that work at the Clubhouse and providing programming for free for families with young kids. 

What sort of programming will you offer local residents?

So, the family center part of the project is going to be a core element, and it’s going to include resources that are just sort of hard to find or few and far between such as parenting classes, parenting support groups, developmental assessments and a nutrition clinic. (There will be) play-based programs for families with young kids, parent participation play groups, where parents with young kids can come together and form a community with other parents and kids can form community with other kids.