BOCA RATON, Fla. — Once a go-to destination for local families, the Boca Raton Children’s Museum has now sat closed for nearly five years, and the fate of its historic home remains uncertain.
“It was a very special little place to take your children, your grandchildren or whatever and play,” said former Boca Raton City Council member Andrea Levine O’Rourke.
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The museum, housed inside the century-old Singing Pines building on North Federal Highway, has been shuttered since 2019 after the nonprofit operator could no longer sustain it due to financial struggles.
“It has been sitting rather non active since before Covid,” O’Rourke said.
For decades, the museum received city grants and community support to keep programs running. But in recent years, the building has fallen into disrepair. City officials now estimate it needs roughly $250,000 in renovations after sustaining water damage in 2024.
“When I found out there was the potential of moving this historic building and spending millions of dollars to move it, when the money wasn’t spent to keep up the programming for it, it was a huge concern for me,” O’Rourke said.
In 2024, the Boca Raton City Council voted to relocate the Singing Pines and Rickard’s House Cottages, to Meadows Park for $1.1 million. That decision was meant with pushback.
“Why spend millions to move something really so important and not know what you’re going to do with it,” O’Rourke said.
The museum site sits within the footprint of Boca Raton’s proposed downtown government campus project, a plan that has drawn strong opposition from residents.
Under the updated proposal from developers Terra and Frisbie, the Singing Pines Museum would remain at its current location.
However, the city says no restoration work will begin until the question of relocation is fully settled.
“I do think it’s the responsibility of the city to keep these special activities that are so important to the community,” O’Rourke said.
