IBJNews

  • Home

Children's Museum to revamp area for preschoolers

 IBJ Staff and Associated Press
September 30, 2010
Keywords
Arts & Entertainment, etc., Children's Museum, Donors, Grants, PNC Financial, Philanthropy, Preschool
Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has received a three-year, $700,000 grant to renovate its early childhood exhibit, Playscape.

The PNC Foundation announced the grant on Wednesday. It is the first major gift the PNC Foundation has made in Indianapolis through its signature philanthropic cause, Grow Up Great, a 10-year, $100 million bilingual initiative to improve early childhood education.

PNC Foundation receives its principal funding from the Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group, which acquired National City Bank in 2008 with the help of government bailout loans.

National City had long been Indianapolis’ No. 2 bank. Thanks to the deal, PNC now has 89 branches, 149 ATMs and about 1,100 employees in the Indianapolis area.

The museum's nearly 20-year-old Playscape area is an interactive exhibit for children ages 5 and younger where kids can create pictures, play in sand and build with blocks. The renovation is expected to be completed by early 2013.

The grant also will pay for teacher training workshops on early childhood development and how to use the exhibit to improve school readiness.

The 473,000-square-foot museum is the largest children's museum in the world and the most visited children's museum in the country.


ADVERTISEMENT

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

ADVANCED SEARCH
Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
 
Subscribe to IBJ

  1. The lack of street-level retail in this part of the Block 400 development is a huge oversight and somewhat perplexing given the high quality of recent city-backed developments downtown. This portion of an otherwise stellar development is going to have an extremely negative impact on the aesthetics, urban environment, walkability, and livability of the NW quad.

    I'm not sure why One America would oppose including retail. And I find it very hard to believe that the thousands of office workers literally footsteps away wouldn't be able to support new lunchtime destinations and other businesses along Illinois and Vermont. We've got to reconnect the disjointed segments of our blossoming downtown, not create yet another lifeless dead zone that no one wants to walk through. Sadly, that is exactly what this massive ugly single-use structure will accomplish.

    Why not follow the precedent set by the proposed garage in Broad Ripple and create an attractive mixed-use structure? Why does the city get it there but not downtown?

  2. Bear mind that DS is just not another lazy, rich kid. He attended Columbia grad school and was in investment banking for 4 or 5 years before joining his dad's company. An annual grant of stock options at market price would be the correct pay-for-performance program then no one could argue with it.

  3. This comes from an executive who gave his wife a Bentley as a wedding present. He is heir to billions of dollars. He should be working for a dollar a year and stock options only. Seems like a conflict of interest, time to bring in a non-relative as CEO. Haven't met him, but have heard his arrogance is legendary.

  4. If the property is improved, property taxes increase - more revenue. If AUL's employment grows, more income taxes - more revenue. If more people move and/or work downtown, it means more demand for goods and services, more employment, more taxes - more revenue, etc., etc. It's not just the city throwing money at big companies. There's much, much more. Yes, the project has private backing, but apparently not enough to make the deal work and therefore they don't have it covered. And while Marsh is a nice anchor, they are no credit tenant like a Kroger or somebody. And if the police department has a major shortfall, they need to reduce the force. This city has way too many policemen.

  5. It's hard to defend billionaires, but David Simon has created a tremendous amount of value for shareholders since joining the company. He is widely regarded as one of the best CEOs in America. The company is growing and making good strategic decisions. And Indy is fortunate to have SPG HQ'd here. Now, does that merit $120 million (about 15 mil over 8 years or so)? Maybe. But this family and David have truly built a business. Should Zuckerberg be worth $20 bil? Who knows. Hopefully David will be supportive of Hoosier charities like his family has.

ADVERTISEMENT