The Atlanta History Center is carving out 5,000 square feet for a children’s experience set to open in January 2025.
Dubbed the Goizueta’s Children’s Experience after former Coca-Cola executive Roberto C. Goizueta, the space will include a mini Fox Theatre where kids can perform and a tiny version of the theater’s pipe organ Mighty Mo. There will also be a Varsity “Silly Scent Station” where kids can sit in a 1950s era replica car while chili dog and Frosted Orange odors waft out of the vents when the right buttons are pressed.
A “History Mystery” area will feature items such as the Izzy mascot from the 1996 Olympics. There will also be a dance floor and a time machine climber.
“We are bringing iconic elements of Atlanta to a kids’ eye level,” said Pola Changnon, chief content officer for the Atlanta History Center. “They can relate to them in a meaningful way.”
While the center has plenty of children’s programming and brings in 40,000 students a year via field trips, it has mostly geared those visits for third graders and up, said Atlanta History Center CEO Sheffield Hale. This new exhibit, he said, will be designed for toddlers, preschoolers and early elementary school kids.
“It was time for a change,” Hale said. “The obvious thing we needed in our portfolio was an indoor experience for children.”
Changnon added that “this is the first time we’ll have anything this substantive that is all year around. It also gives us a chance to introduce families to the Atlanta History Center to our other offerings such as the Smith Family Garden and the living collection of sheep and goats.”
Hale said the new experience will be located in the center of the main exhibit hall “between the Civil War and Bobby Jones,” replacing a 30-year-old exhibit focused on traditions and folkways.
The children’s experience will change themes every year. This first year’s theme is “the great big city.”
“It’s an additional cost to rotate exhibits,” Hale said. “But I think it will be worth it to give people an excuse to come back.”
