Children’s Museum Project Moves Closer to Fruition : Culture: A Santa Ana commission has tentatively agreed to buy a bank building that is to be the site of a facility run by Bowers officials and opened by fall.

Plans for a hands-on museum entirely for children have jumped forward with the city’s tentative decision to buy a bank building for the project.

Officials of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art plan to open the children’s museum this fall in the California Federal Bank Building at 18th and Main streets, a few blocks from the Bowers.

Santa Ana’s Redevelopment Commission last week tentatively approved buying the 10,500-square-foot building for $675,000. If the plan gets final approval on Jan. 18, the city will lease the building to the Bowers for a nominal, undisclosed cost.

“What has essentially gone on has been an amazing stroke of good luck,” Bowers spokesman Brian Langston said of the city’s deal.

Don Cribb, president of the Santa Ana Council of Arts and Culture, said the museum will provide a much-needed resource for children in the central county and will bring together people from diverse cultural backgrounds in Santa Ana.

The arts council has been looking at “what art can do as a form of healing” for children, Cribb said.

“Art needs to begin with children,” Cribb said. “It needs to be part of their experience and education.”

The Discovery Museum of Orange County, which received about $17,000 from the city last year and is located in southwest Santa Ana, also is considering installing a Discovery Science Center for older children by 1997 near the Bowers. Possible sites for the center are on Main Street north of the Santa Ana Freeway or an area between 18th and 19th streets near Main Street.

Museum officials said they like the idea of having several children’s centers and museums within walking distance of each other and several schools.

Most large cities have a park where museums are clustered, said Discovery Museum executive director Karen Johnson, citing Balboa Park in San Diego and Exposition Park in Los Angeles.

“Orange County, because it’s a multi-city area, has not really had a large metropolitan park where cultural institutions are gathered.”

Bowers director Peter Keller said that proposed after-school and field-trip classes will be tied to the art of indigenous people worldwide. Officials plan four classrooms, a room for puppets and native storytelling and hands-on exhibits where children can learn to grind corn or try on native costumes.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to give children a space of their own,” Bowers director Peter Keller said.

Bowers Museum, a nationally recognized center for art and artifacts, completed a four-year, $12-million expansion in 1992. About one-third of the museum’s $3.1-million budget comes from the city and $1.2 million is from the museum’s store, restaurant, admission fees and facility rentals. Private donations account for the rest.

Cathy Michaels, director of the Children’s Museum at La Habra, said there may be competition among museums for corporate resources.

“But I think there’s a reasonable number of resources in this county,” she said.

Children’s museums and cultural centers are growing and becoming popular, Michaels said, because “children’s programs are hot issues right now. Sponsors know that if they don’t do something to promote well-educated children, there won’t be a future for their corporations.”

Keller agreed that “funds for this sort of activity seem to be available. People see the importance of children.”

Keller said Bowers Museum cut employees’ hours by 10% and their salaries by 5% last month, not because of budget shortfalls but to streamline the operation. The museum also began shutting its doors one hour earlier last month because few people were visiting the museum during late afternoons.

The city of Santa Ana will start cutting its funding for the museum by 10% each year for 10 years, until the museum is completely privately run, Keller said.