Two-year-old Gabriel Green’s wails and shrieks of disappointment disrupted the quiet, tranquil butterfly exhibit in Gainesville.
His father, Jarrett Green, tried to console him by directing his attention to the “pretty butterflies.
“I want the butterflies to stay. Why can’t we come back?” said Gabriel, amid a burst of tears.
The proposed renovations are a new administrative building, the modernization of the building’s front end and additional space for new exhibits and learning centers.
Museum staff announced in a December press release that the museum rescheduled its construction timeline, which means the closure will start on March 24. This closure includes the butterfly exhibit, leaving Gabriel distraught at the news.
Green, 31, said he was initially taken aback by the news and hopes the museum reopens sooner than later.
“It felt like it came out of nowhere,” he said.
The museum's closure leaves many parents without a free educational environment for their children.
“There’s not many opportunities like this around here,” Green said. “Losing the educational value of the museum for a while is going to be hard to replace.”
Green enjoys going to the museum because it’s valuable time he can spend with his son.
“We love it here. I take Gabriel here at least once a week,” he said. “It’s our way of bonding because he loves to learn, and I love to show him things.”
Still, Green is confident the closure and renovations will serve to benefit the museum’s resources and experience.
“It’ll be great to come back to a brand-new museum,” he said. “Hopefully, Gabriel won’t even recognize it when we do eventually come back.”
The approximately 6,000-square-foot project initially had a $20 million budget, according to the museum’s press release. The University of Florida administration allocated an additional $10 million, delaying the closure and allowing a larger expansion, said Nikhil Srinivasan, a public relations specialist for the museum
“We initially didn’t have enough funds to realize the initial construction plan, but now we do,” he said. “We had to go back to the drawing board and replan the most efficient way to handle the expansion.”
The proposed renovations to the front end of the building will be a revamped entrance and an expanded gift shop. The public will not have access to the new administrative building, which will act as an office and research facility for the Thompson Earth Systems Institute, Srinivasan said.
“They’re currently at the McGuire Center and Powell Hall,” he said. “The additional space will provide them a lot more resources.”
Scorpio Construction, a Gainesville-based construction company, will undertake the project. The company has worked on numerous sites for UF, including the Student Health Care Center and Honors Village.
Erik Anderson, senior project development team leader, said the company is excited at the prospect of fulfilling the project's initial design.
“I know the delay could be viewed as a negative,” he said. “But it’s actually a positive because there's no way that they could get all of the scope of the project that they want to do in this facility without that added funding.”
The construction will close the museum to the public indefinitely; however, the museum staff remains optimistic that it will reopen sometime in 2026, Srinivasan said.
“We're hesitant to promise an exact time just because in case there's any delays with such a long-term project and things like that,” he said. “But we are optimistic of opening sometime next year, hopefully by the fall.”
Regardless of when the museum’s doors reopen, Anderson said that the project will be worthwhile for the university and community.
“I really truly think that it's going to just enhance that whole cultural plaza along with the art museums,” he said. “That whole area will just continue to provide a real vital resource to a lot of families.”
The museum will host off-site events to ensure their resources remain accessible to the public to combat the lack of educational opportunities and community interaction, Srinivasan said.
“We have our big Museum Fest event on March 8 that will feature kind of like a preview of our off-site programming,” he said. “Some of the activities and pop-ups and things like that and our mobile gift shop that you'll see out in the community over the next year.”
Additionally, the museum will continue to work with the YMCA, the Early Learning Coalition and local elementary schools to host off-site events for kids in North Florida, he said.
“Our presence isn’t going anywhere,” Srinivasan said. “We still want to inspire people to care about life on earth.”
Although the museum staff is making efforts to be transparent and present within the community, Monica Fields, a parent and frequent visitor, remains disgruntled about how the staff is handling the shutdown.
“I feel like they didn’t communicate everything well,” she said. “We just got a membership recently. It would’ve been nice to know that they were closing everything for a while before we paid for that.”
Membership can range from $50 to $275, according to the museum’s website. Fields, 41, purchased a household membership worth $125.
Fields also hesitated to applaud the renovations focused on museum administration and the front end of the building rather than the exhibits.
“It just feels unnecessary,” she said. “It’s kind of dumb if you ask me.”