EVERETT — The Imagine Children’s Museum just announced the purchase of another property downtown.
The nonprofit acquired a sliver of land adjacent to the downtown museum.
The acquisition provides around 20 more parking stalls, but more importantly preserves the museum’s ability to expand in the future, said Nancy Johnson, the museum’s executive director.
“It’s one of those things that has always been a vision of the board,” she said.
The nonprofit paid the Walters family $260,000 for the land, which is just a smidge bigger than a tenth of an acre. The family has owned the land for more than a century, Johnson said.
Carl Oscar Walters, a lumber manufacturer, bought the land in the late 1800s.
That sliver of land, although small, has a big history in Everett. It’s the former location of the Spudnuts shop, which was a local landmark with its neon doughnut sign. It closed in the early ’70s and the land is now a parking lot.
The museum already spent $3.3 million purchasing three lots on the same block. Then, the museum’s board decided to buy the land after it heard another buyer wanted the property. If it didn’t buy the land itself, the museum would have been surrounded by buildings.
The museum already is in the middle of an expansion that should be finished around the turn of the year. Its doors remain open during that work.
Officials plan to turn a parking garage attached to its main building into a Northwest-style lodge exhibit space.
The multipurpose pavilion will enable the museum to host traveling exhibits and special events as well as serve more people.
The nonprofit raised $5 million, most if it went toward buying three lots on the same block as the museum.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com
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