Museum Education Center breaks ceremonial ground Sunday

Members of City Council and the Education Center Foundation don hard hats Sunday evening for the time honored tradition of turning some earth signifying the beginning of the construction process – Photos by Terry Miller

By Terry Miller
Arcadia City Council and the Arcadia Historical Museum Foundation performed a ceremonial ground breaking Sunday evening on the construction of a new Museum Education Center to be built between the Arcadia Community Center and the Gilb Museum of Arcadia Heritage.
Hundreds of guest showed up to support Floretta Lauber’s long-time dream of this new education center which is slated for completion in about 6- 8 months
Lauber and her foundation raised over $500,000 for the project.
A beaming Lauber thanked all the donors, both large and small who helped this become a reality and made a special note of thanking the many volunteers who helped get the message out.
The well-attended event included many former mayors and other dignitaries as well as hundreds of friends and supporters of Lauber’s dream.

The 2,650 square foot Education Center will house classrooms for educational programming such as art, crafts, lectures, children’s and senior activities, as well as other similar functions. The building will provide the space needed to accommodate the demand for current activities and it will also allow for future expansion of Museum and recreation programming.
The Arcadia Museum Education Center is a joint effort of the City of Arcadia and the Arcadia Historical Museum Foundation. The budget for the building is $877,339 with
$500,000 of that being donated by the Foundation. The City’s portion of the funding is coming from Park and Recreation Impact Fees, which can be used only for park and recreation capacity enhancements.
Arcadia Weekly’s Social columnist Floretta Lauber has been the driving force behind this project for many, many years. “I am thrilled to see this project come to fruition,” said Lauber, President of the Arcadia Historical Museum Foundation.
“Foundation members have worked hard for several years in order to make a substantial financial contribution to the City so that this project can move forward. We are very excited that everything is in place and construction is ready to begin.”
Mayor Mickey Segal commented: “The Museum Education Center will be a wonderful asset to our community and will open up many possibilities for the continued offering of educational and leisure-time activities. The City Council is especially thankful to the Arcadia Historical Museum Foundation for their work on this project and for their financial contribution.”
With design and construction estimated to take eight months, the Museum Education Center should be ready to open by May 2014.

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