• By Todd Luck
• Posted Friday, August 20, 2021

Ground is broken on new Kaleideum

Forsyth County Commissioners participated in the groundbreaking on August 19 for the new Kaleideum, which will combine Kaleideum’s children’s museum and science center in one downtown location.

Forsyth County is funding construction for the new museum, which is being built on the site of the old Sheriff’s Office near the corner of West Third Street and Town Run Lane. Kaleideum is an interactive museum of arts, sciences, and exploration formed by the merger of The Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem and SciWorks in July 2016.

Kaleideum currently has two locations: one in Downtown and the other on Hanes Mill Road. Both will relocate to the new facility once it’s completed. The new Kaleideum is scheduled to open Fall 2023. Additionally, Liberty Plaza Park is being reimagined and reconstructed adjacent to the museum and will complement the new Kaleideum facility.

In 2019 (before the pandemic):

• Kaleideum served 207,168 visitors from 44 states at both its locations.
• It hosted 27,641 student visitors, and, of those, 57.4% attended a Title I School.
• Using Community Access passes available at Forsyth County libraries, 2,340 people gained free admission to Kaleideum.
• It was ranked among the Top 30 Tourist Attractions in North Carolina, according to the Triad Business Journal.
• It had $7.7 million in total economic impact.

For pictures of the groundbreaking, click here