A First Look at the Future of Muse Knoxville

Rockets. Soaring climbing structures. Interactive waterways. Engineering challenges. Creative laboratories. More hands-on science than you can shake a Bunsen burner at.

Last night, I got a glimpse of the future of Muse Knoxville, and y’all, it gave me chills.

I joined a crowd of community leaders, supporters and assorted curious people inside the vast, airplane hangar-esque Jacob Building at Chilhowee Park for the official launch of Muse’s Grow With Me capital campaign. Attendees got a first look at detailed floor plans, exhibit renderings and a virtual walkthrough of the future museum.

Taking in the sheer scale and ambition of it all, my first thought was, This is incredible. Too bad Thomas (our second-grader) will be in college by the time it opens. Maybe his kids will enjoy it someday.

Then I learned they’re planning to open in 2028.

As in, two years from now. Excuse me, WHAT?

The ambitious project will transform the historic, city-owned Jacob Building into a 57,100-square-foot, multigenerational science museum, nearly six times the size of Muse’s current 10,000-square-foot facility just across Chilhowee Park. The total project value is $83.2 million, including a $50 million fundraising campaign and $33.2 million in estimated value from the city’s long-term building lease.

And they’re already well on their way. In her remarks, Muse President, CEO and local eyeglass fashion icon Allison Comer said that the campaign has secured $33 million in commitments and pledges in less than 16 months, thanks in large part to a transformational $25 million gift from the Clayton Family Foundation.

“This campaign is not simply about a move into this larger building,” Allie told the audience. “This is an opportunity to reimagine what an all-ages science museum can be and what it can mean to an entire region right here in Tennessee.”

If you’ve visited Muse lately, you know it’s a popular place. A little too popular for its current footprint.

The museum sees 21.89 visitors per square foot annually, compared with museum best-practice recommendations of four to eight. Between fiscal years 2024 and 2026, some 3,000 visitors were waitlisted because of fire-code capacity restrictions, and 10 East Tennessee school districts were turned away in 2026 because there simply wasn’t enough room.

The new facility is projected to reach more than 225,000 people annually, with expanded opportunities for early learning, STEM education, school partnerships, community events and family engagement. The organization is investing in a historic public building that has been sitting largely underused, under a lease arrangement with the city extending up to 40 years.

Note: I forgot to add these in when I was working on the story late last night. But here are some renderings!

It’s also intentional that Muse is staying put in East Knoxville, where it has deep roots, Zoo Knoxville as a neighbor, and a pivotal role in the revitalization of a historically underserved part of town. While plans for “a sprawling, glow-in-the-dark waterpark anchored by a multi-story mountain coaster” on the Chilhowee Park site were sadly scrapped earlier this year (on April 1, specifically), in June the city committed $10 million to park improvements over five years, further cementing this Bermuda Triangle of family attractions, where entire Saturdays may disappear without a trace.

Shout out to Barber McMurray, which has been doing such beautiful and impactful work in our city for a very long time (since 1915 to be specific!). Teaser: I’ve got a story written up about their “Archives After Dark” Knox Heritage fundraiser coming to IOK soon.

From The Grandiflora and River & Rail Theatre Company to downtown Burlington redevelopment, streetscape improvements and so much more, the Magnolia corridor has tremendous momentum; I’m long overdue for an update but compiled a fairly epic compendium of new developments in August 2025 here.

We also heard from AJ Goehle, woman who knows her way around a pantsuit and CEO of Luci Creative, the exhibit design firm developing the new museum.

AJ described the concept of “imprint experiences,” those childhood moments that stick with us for a lifetime. Maybe you remember building something, taking something apart or figuring out how something worked. You probably don’t remember every detail, she pointed out, but you remember how it felt.

“We don’t need to give kids all the answers,” she said. “We actually need to give them opportunities to figure things out for themselves.”

AJ said the design process has been heavily informed by the community. In the past year, 52 listening sessions brought together 585 participants, including educators, scientists, engineers, families and children.

The resulting plans are rooted in East Tennessee, with exhibits inspired by our own mountains, waterways, industries, energy resources and scientific innovations. There are murals of Knoxville landmarks even a mini-city. “It can’t be a museum that’s anywhere,” AJ said. “It has to be a museum that’s only here.”

She described the project as a love letter to East Tennessee. Imagine an interactive water system inspired by the Smokies, where children can follow rainfall down the mountains, build dams and redirect rivers. An exhibition in the same lane at Chattanooga’s Creative Discovery Museum always captivates our kiddo completely.

Other experiences will explore engineering, energy, space, healthcare and the countless ways science intersects with everyday life.

One young member of Muse’s Student Advisory Board had requested a vertically oriented rocket, so children could experience what it might feel like to sit inside a spacecraft preparing for launch. During Thursday’s presentation, we learned that the idea had made it into the designs. The kid was understandably delighted.

The new museum is also being designed to grow with its visitors, with different experiences for toddlers, elementary schoolers, teenagers and adults. As AJ, a mother of three, pointed out, what fascinates a four-year-old isn’t necessarily going to captivate a 12-year-old: “The curiosity in them doesn’t change; it just evolves.”

Capital campaign co-chair Brandon Bruce shared a childhood memory of visiting the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and encountering its enormous blue whale skeleton. Decades later, he still remembers it vividly.

He then recalled his own children’s experiences at Muse, from his daughter’s first encounter with a hot glue gun in the makerspace (spoiler: it ended well!) to his son’s early taste of the theater spotlight.

Growing up in Fountain City, my own introduction to the wonders of museums came during our fifth-grade Safety Patrol trip to Washington, D.C., where the Smithsonian museums opened up a whole new world to me. I was awestruck.

It’s hard to imagine our own second-grader having to wait another three years for that kind of experience. But access to museums, field trips and other educational adventures isn’t a given for every child, which makes Muse’s commitment to accessibility especially important.

In fiscal year 2026, nearly 45% of Muse memberships were classified as low-income, more than 55% of students received Title I scholarships, and the museum served more than 200 schools. Comer emphasized the importance of ensuring that “zip code, family income, learning style, and ability never ever stands between a child and the opportunity to discover what is possible.”

Like our family, whenever the Bruces traveled, the first thing they looked for was the children’s museum or science museum. He believes the new Muse could become that kind of destination for families visiting Knoxville.

“When people with families visit Knoxville, I think this is going to be their first port of call,” he said.

He compared the undertaking to the transformational Covenant Health Park development and predicted that the new Muse will eventually be recognized among the best children’s museums in the country: “This, in my view, is a generational project.”

There’s still plenty of work to be done, and plenty of money to raise.

The $50 million capital campaign has received support from 20 founding partners, including the Clayton Family Foundation, the Boyd Foundation, the City of Knoxville, Knox County, the State of Tennessee, TVA, Bank of America and numerous businesses, foundations and families. Even neighborhood coffee shop Perk City made the list, which I love.

The design process continues through 2026, with groundbreaking and construction planned for 2027. Exhibit installation and the grand opening are anticipated in 2028.

I was completely blown away by what we saw at this preview. There’s a lot of ambition packed into these plans, and I’m so excited about creating a museum that’s distinctly East Tennessean, with nods to our culture and geography that will help cultivate that all-important understanding of place in Knoxville’s youngest citizens. There’s enough variety and depth to keep kids coming back as they grow, too. Our seven-year-old will be nine when the new Muse is expected to open, and I have a feeling we’ll be spending a lot of time there for years to come.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the kids of today are the thinkers, planners and doers of tomorrow, and we grownups have left them some big messes to clean up and saddled them with some pretty daunting challenges ahead. I think we owe it to them to give them every tool they need to tackle whatever the future brings next.

To learn more about the Grow With Me campaign or get involved, visit Muse Knoxville’s campaign website or contact Katie Mixon at [email protected].

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