Bridge Builders Award
The National Children’s Museum and The Peterson Companies, Developer for National Harbor, for working together to create a stronger region through the development of a successful mixed-use destination for residents and tourists in Prince George’s County, and helping link National Harbor, a new riverfront project, to the nation’s capital.
When the National Children’s Museum (NCM) began looking for a new location in the Washington D.C. region, The Peterson Companies, in the midst of creating National Harbor, a major new development in Prince George’s County, saw an opportunity for both parties to enrich their goals by locating the museum within the development. As a result of negotiations and significant consideration by both sides, NCM now has a new home and the Washington D.C. region has a new, unique destination for families.
After closing the doors of its outdated space on H Street, NE in 2004, NCM anticipated moving to a location in downtown D.C.’s L’Enfant Plaza, but were unable to remain at that site because of the developer’s delayed plans. Milton Peterson, who has held tight control over the National Harbor development since he bought the property in 1996, thought that NCM would be a powerful new anchor for a site that already had extensive commercial development. To initially lure the museum, he offered to donate land, which allowed the museum to focus on fundraising for construction and operations. Throughout the following year of negotiations around programmatic and building needs, The Peterson Companies, used to dealing with commercial entities, remained flexible and continually worked with the museum to ensure these needs would be met.
In July of 2007, NCM announced the move to National Harbor and a projected opening date of 2012. NCM will build a 150,000 square foot, state-of-the-art, LEED Certified museum at its new site. The site itself provides a number of new opportunities for the museum, — specifically, the opportunity to extend the visitors’ experience outdoors where the museum will now have approximately 15,000 square feet of outdoor program space. Furthermore, this new site helps the museum better serve the entire Washington region, by providing easy access to families in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. NCM has also already begun working with its new neighbors in Maryland through local programming and partnerships.
In recognizing the assets that the museum brings to the development and the assets that the development can provide for the museum, the two entities are working together to create a new destination within the region that serves as a “Gateway to the Washington Region” for kids and families.