ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A new local museum continues to make progress towards its spring opening next year. The Great River Children's Museum is targeting an April opening but there is still lots to do. The outside structure is moving along with needing windows installed, and finishing the outdoor exhibit space before work on the interior can be started.

Paul Habstritt, WJON
Cassie Miles, Great River Children's Museum
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Executive Director Cassie Miles says all the exhibits have a different installer so there are a lot of schedules to manage:

"Our site superintendent has his work cut out for him making sure that schedules are coordinated so that our exhibit design teams can be on-site when they need to so as an example our climber needs some steel structure, they have to come out and make sure that all the steel is in place before they can get ready to install all those other climbing features, our water table needs all of those plumbing rough-ins to be checked and things like that so it's just a lot of scheduling."

Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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She says they will have 8 core exhibit galleries and one is particularly stunning:

"The Headwaters exhibit is a really amazing exhibit. It is a two-story space that will have a projected art on the ceiling created by a native, Sky Watchers Design Studios as led by Dr. Annette Lee who's an astrophysicist, she is an artist and she creates constellations in the night sky."

Miles says they can update portions of the core exhibits to refresh them and they will also have a temporary gallery for rotating exhibits as well plus a few other fun spaces:

"And then we also have other program space, we have a programming room with a teaching kitchen, space for birthday party rentals and the like, we have a community room and we have a rooftop deck that will also be available as a venue."

Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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She says in addition to the public spaces there will be some office space and a basement feature people might not expect:

"So when people think about the children's museum rightfully so they're thinking about all the fun they're going to have there all of the play. Behind the scenes, we get to set up things like laundry and dishwashing stations so that we can wash all of our loose parts and we're prepared for those accidents that occur when kids are in potty training phases, those parts that end up in our toddlers' mouths when when their in our great exploration exhibit and their 0-3 and their just learning about the world around them so we're prepared to clean and wash all of it."

Miles says the outdoor space will be really fun too with a 12-14 foot cat tail forest kids can climb through. She says it is a hard push to the finish line to make sure they have everything ready to open come April.

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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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The Great River Children's Museum is holding its first annual Game Night Gala Fundraising event on November 16th. Cassie Miles will join WJON live in the studio on Saturday at 7:10 a.m. to talk more about the gala and the museum.

Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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Paul Habstritt, WJON
Paul Habstritt, WJON
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