Taj Duma (left) and Rex Kemmer have had the first crack at festooning the walls of the Splatter Room, where kids’ oversized art on eight wall-size whiteboards will glow under UV light.
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Families looking for ways to tame their youngsters’ energy will soon have another alternative to housebound children bouncing off the walls — the KidCo Children’s Museum, an interactive indoor playground that is taking shape on Center Avenue.
KidCo is the brainchild of hospitality entrepreneur Aaron Duma and his partners, wife Emily and friends Tom Kemmer and Leah Kaspari. In between Swing Barrel Brewing Company and Hot Dog Pet Salon, the space that formerly housed Nature of the North is turning into a spacious, safe wonderland designed to pique the imaginations — and use up the energy — of children “from zero to 8,” as Duma puts it.
While they call it a children’s museum, KidCo will be far from a place to walk among static exhibits. Instead, the two men, who Duma calls its “curators,” are fashioning a complex of attractions designed with kids’ ages and abilities in mind … a destination to explore and play while their parents relax and keep an eye on them from a distance.
Duma is the operating partner of River Haven Events Center, a gathering place of a very different nature. The former American Legion building a block north of KidCo now hosts all kinds of adult gatherings, from elegant corporate dinners to marriage celebrations — 127 weddings this year alone. He built his reputation over 20 years as a bartender and manager in hospitality businesses, including at the Sanctuary and Usher’s House, whose quarters he reinvented as River Haven.
Kemmer is a carpenter and contractor. The two became acquainted when he built the interior features of the Sanctuary. He also built up the interiors of Harold’s, the Main Avenue nightspot in which he is a partner.
“When we travel, my wife and I always go looking for children’s museums for our kids,” Duma says. They have two — Isabelle, 5, and Taj, who turns 7 next week. They’ve visited some of the best — Austin, Tucson, Phoenix, Seattle and even Vienna — where they gathered inspiration as their youngsters enjoyed themselves. Back home, those experiences got Duma thinking. “We’d wanted to see one here at home for a long time,” he says. “When COVID-19 basically stalled River Haven, I took out my iPad and got busy.”
He brought up the idea with Kemmer, himself the father of 6-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. “When he laid out what they were thinking,” Kemmer says, “it didn’t take any convincing.”
The couples have spent recent months turning their 2,600 sq. ft. space into a purple-and-bright-green world to be filled with features to delight different ages. The center of the space, the Toddler Zone, is encircled by a bar-height seating rail where parents will be able to sip coffee and play with their phones or tablets. The enclosure will be filled with giant building blocks, a climbing slide, a play kitchen and a “busy board” with locks, keys, zippers and other gizmos to intrigue the very young.
Children a little older can choose among a “tiny town” with a child-sized bistro, fire station, tree house, construction zone and something they call a “woos her” — tubes where forced air can bounce balls, scarves and miscellaneous objects, then force them out for the kids to catch. There will also be a magnetic ball run and soft bricks for building play forts, as well as a puppet theater where youngsters can stage their own productions.
Duma says KidCo is being designed with an urban theme. In one corner, a stage large enough to accommodate a drum set and a couple guitars has been dubbed Center Avenue Stage in tribute to downtown Minneapolis’s iconic First Avenue. Monthly concerts are in the planning stage, along with play performances by the kids themselves.
A separate area, the Splatter Room, will be walled in 8-foot whiteboards. There, budding artists can create vivid drawings and designs, glowing under UV lighting.
Duma emphasizes what KidCo is not — a day care or drop-off center. “Parents will be responsible for their own kids,” he stresses. “We’ll maintain rules. No running, pushing, hitting, kicking. It’s a place for children and their parents to interact and have fun together.”
The Dumas have planned for children’s stages of development and limitations. Many of their planned 90-minute sessions are earmarked for certain audiences. Saturday mornings will be exclusively for toddlers (though they’ll also be welcome in the Toddler Zone at other times). On Sunday, kids on the autism spectrum and with other sensory disorders will be welcomed into a quieter, less frenetic environment — lower lights, quieter (or no) music, fewer people. “We want to keep it inclusive in every way,” Duma says.
Hours will be from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Friday and 9 to 4 Saturday and Sunday. Mondays are reserved for field trips and special events. The facility will be available for birthday parties after regular hours. “Just show up with your kid and a cake, and we’ll take care of the rest,” Duma quips.
The cost for a 90-minute session is expected to be $14 per child. One parent will be admitted free; a second must pay $4. A variety of memberships and multi-session deals will be available.
Originally the partners had hoped to be open in time for the holiday season, but supply chain issues have pushed the opening back. Now they are hoping to open their doors in mid-January. When KidCo went public with a Facebook page last week, Duma says he was amazed to see it attract more than 2,000 friends in just the first two days.
“Our demographic is 95% women between 25 and 45,” he reports. Their wives, who precisely fit that profile, have been providing a perfect source of market research on what features to include. “Does Emily like it?” he suggests. “If she does, I know it’s going to be a winner.”
