Now the museum — with its gamut of activities — is working to move to the next stage of its evolution. It may get a brand new building that could make it a permanent landmark in the heart of the Marina District. Under a deal being negotiated, Granville Pacific LLC, a developer based in Seattle and Vancouver, Canada, would acquire the museum block and demolish the old two-story warehouse, building the shell of a new museum on the side bordered by Front Street and Island Avenue. A residential tower would rise next to it.

Already the outlines of a grand design have begun to emerge for the $100 million proposed project, as the architectural firm of Austin Veum Robbins Parshalle hammers out the details. The museum, says architect Douglas H. Austin, will be “extremely exciting. It should be obvious that this is a place where kids could have fun.” Austin envisions a museum of between 50,000 and 60,000 square feet. Part of it would be above ground, he says, and part underground, providing “three-dimensional spaces where somebody in the park above could play and actually see somebody in a space below.”

The museum hired Jeffrey Quinn as project manager. By late September, the architects were working with Quinn to determine where to put the new museum’s gallery space, its administrative offices and its charter school. Also required is a plan for phasing in its different programs, depending on the success of the museum’s fund-raising efforts. The developer is to provide $6 million to build the shell of the museum, explains museum executive director Kay Wagner. But the organization hopes to raise another $6 million to make the museum “world class.” Getting off to a good start, the museum already has been promised $1 million from Muriel Gluck of the Maxwell H. Gluck Foundation. “We’re confident people will come in and help us,” says Wagner. “We have naming opportunities for people, and we hope the museum will be named after a prominent individual.”

Marc Harris, a principal in Granville Pacific, agrees that the museum needs to raise considerably more money if it expects to incorporate its wish list of features into the new structure. “Some things they have to have,” he says. “Some things they don’t have to have.” Meanwhile, Granville Pacific, which recently formed a partnership with another Vancouver-based development company, Pinnacle International, continues to plan its proposed condominium tower. It recently completed a second marketing study to determine its size. Although the design could change, the current plan calls for a structure that will rise about 400 feet from a base 90 feet wide by 120 feet deep.

Architect Austin, who sits on the Centre City Development Corp. board and must abstain from voting on the museum project, says the tower will be gracefully slender, rising taller than its neighbors. The building’s lower 11 or 12 floors would have four units each, with the next 10 stories stepped back, containing two units per floor. The top seven stories each would have a single unit, including a soaring, high-ceilinged penthouse with spectacular views over the city and the harbor. “There will be a dialogue visually between the top of the residential tower and the top of the museum,” says Austin, “and this is sort of sculpture talking to sculpture.” The development will be rounded out with loft homes and retail space to make the project more accessible to pedestrians, he says.

If the project moves forward as planned, it will culminate years of effort to secure a permanent future for the Children’s Museum. First opening in La Jolla Village Square in 1983, the Children’s Museum moved Downtown to the Coast Electric warehouse a decade later. In August 1994, the Centre City Development Corp. purchased the museum block bounded by Market, Union and Front streets and Island Avenue plus a 6,100-square-foot triangle on the neighboring block for $5.25 million. CCDC paid $450,000 in cash to the seller, David Engel, and took out a $4.8 million note for the remainder. The museum agreed to pay rent to help CCDC cover interest payments on the 10-year note. The museum was given the option of buying the property — with conditions. A museum of at least 40,000 square feet had to remain on the site. The museum was not allowed to sell the block and use the profits to move elsewhere. The deal was intended to give the museum incentives to stay put.

The museum got a free ride the first year, but the rent went to $215,725 for the next four years. It jumped to $288,000 a year starting in 2000, payable at a rate of $24,000 a month. For a time, the museum faltered financially. It failed to make its annual rent payment in December 1998. The following April, CCDC agreed to postpone the missed payment. But the agency reminded the museum that if it could not pay its rent or buy the property in the future, it had agreed to vacate the premises.

Still, the museum saw hope in the development boom that had begun to transform the surrounding blocks. The frenzy of construction work going on around the museum signaled an increase in Marina District property values, including the Children’s Museum site. In 1999, museum directors began to ask developers for proposals that could help solve the museum’s tenant issues while delivering a new museum building. Harris jumped at the opportunity. “We had tried to buy it before,” he recalls. “We’ve been looking at the site for a long time.”

Under the Granville Pacific proposal, the developer would acquire the block, providing the museum with enough to pay off CCDC’s $4.8 million note. The museum in turn would transfer ownership to Granville Pacific. The developer would spend about $6 million to build the museum on the block. The small triangle of land across from the museum — now a parking lot — will be transformed into a children’s park.

Museum executive director Wagner wishes CCDC would allow the museum to keep more of the sale proceeds, reducing the need for outside fund-raising. “For the big, successful children’s museums in other cities, often the land and the building are donated,” she says. San Francisco spent $30 million to construct a new museum for kids. CCDC’s Pam Hamilton says she believes that the museum should live up to its obligations. “The agreement entered into requires that the funds to pay off the $4.8 million note (still owed on the property) would come from the museum,” Hamilton says. She notes that CCDC has helped financially. The agency spent $100,000 to fix the warehouse roof so the museum could occupy it. And in the early years of its agreement, CCDC was paying more in interest on the property than it was getting in rent payments from the museum. The subsidy amounts to $1.3 million over 10 years, she says.

The museum is negotiating its proposed construction project at a time when it has fresh leadership. Wagner, who spent 17 years as director of visual and performing arts in the San Diego Schools, took over as the Children’s Museum executive director last year. Prior to that, she sat on the museum board.

Current museum board members include its president, John H. Davis, a partner with KPMG; Jeff Belk, vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s Eudora Products; Dennis Cruzan, president and CEO of Burnham Real Estate Services; attorney Lisa Foster; Debby Jacobs, head tennis professional and director at the Jewish Community Center; Patrick Ledden, provost at UCSD’s John Muir College; Sandra L. Matheus, regional director of CalFed; Janathin Miller, president of Antin & Associates; Jeanne Roth, a community leader; Gary Shaw, publisher of San Diego Metropolitan; Janice Weitzen, a community volunteer; Gregory F. Wells, Southern California division manager for premier business banking at Wells Fargo Bank; and attorney Lise N. Wilson.

The museum, which expects more than 100,000 visitors this year and has a $1.2 million annual budget, has steadily expanded its programs. For instance, with a grant from Sempra Energy, the museum brings 900 children from Tijuana and San Diego to meet and do art projects together.

In 1998, the museum received a charter from the San Diego Unified School District and launched its Museum School. It offers extended day care for working parents and an art-enriched curriculum on the museum’s premises. This year, the school has 60 students in the third through sixth grades. It is staffed by principal Carl Hermanns, a conductor and composer by background, and two teachers, Phil Beaumont and Gingerlily Lowe-Brisby.

Besides the school, the museum has a dozen other employees. They are office manager April Sarkarhosseini; Scott Heffner, director of marketing; Jan Whyte, accounting manager; Jason Toy, exhibition manager; Mark Henderson, exhibition assistant; Branan Freeman, art studio manager; June Rubin, art studio assistant; Bridget Gast, volunteer coordinator; Valerie Griggs, membership coordinator; Betty Sanchez, manager of visitor services; and Martin Villagomez, maintenance.

If ground is broken for the new museum building early next year, as expected, the museum staff and the Museum School will have to move to a different location during the 24 months of construction. Wagner says that administrative offices, storage and the charter school would require at least 10,000 square feet of space — even more if an interim Children’s Museum opens. But Wagner thinks a temporary Children’s Museum may be too costly. “Do you spend the money or do you put it into the new building?” she asks.