The Oregon Zoo is taking ownership of the long-vacant Portland Children's Museum building in Washington Park, zoo director Heidi Rahn announced Thursday, giving new life to a property that has sat empty for years. The move will expand the zoo's campus, folding in a space that once drew hundreds of thousands of young visitors a year before its abrupt closure.
According to OregonLive, the acquisition marks an expansion of the zoo's footprint within Washington Park, where the museum building has stood largely unused since its closure. The outlet reported the museum shuttered in 2021, citing “devastating attendance and revenue losses,” though OPB has reported the closure came in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic — accounts that diverge on the exact timing but agree the museum has sat dark for years. Before it was the Children's Museum, the same building housed the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and OregonLive notes the Children's Museum itself operated there for 20 years.
Rahn framed the handover as a continuation of the site's legacy of inspiring young minds. “The Children's Museum and OMSI have inspired curiosity and sparked imagination for so many kids growing up in the region,” she said, according to the same report. Rahn also said the zoo wants to continue that legacy going forward, even as the building's next chapter remains undefined.
A Years-Long Path to the Zoo's Hands
The transfer caps a process that stretches back to 2024, when the Portland City Council unanimously approved selling the 3.4-acre Washington Park lot to Metro, the regional government that runs the Oregon Zoo, for $3 million, as reported by OPB. Portland's own ordinance authorizing the sale, filed with the city, deemed the museum building and surrounding acreage surplus property and cleared the way for the transfer, according to Portland.gov.
KOIN reported that the 3.4-acre property was previously owned by Portland Parks & Recreation and that the museum operated there from 2001 until its permanent closure in June 2020. During that run, the station reported, the museum welcomed an average of 250,000 visitors each year — a steady draw for families that has left a noticeable gap in the years since.
Structural Issues and an Undecided Future
The building itself is not without problems. Per a zoo news release cited by the station's report, the structure has significant structural issues and was actually marked for demolition as far back as 2018, as part of the city's Washington Park master plan that year. Despite those flagged issues, no demolition timeline or repair plan has been announced.
Rahn said the zoo has not settled on what will ultimately happen inside the building, though she raised one possibility: moving administrative services into the space. No final plans have been made, the outlet's report notes, leaving the building's long-term purpose an open question even as ownership shifts to the zoo.
A Void Still Unfilled in Portland
Since the museum's closure, nothing in the Portland area has taken its place, the report states, underscoring the scale of the loss for families who once relied on the Washington Park institution. The FLIP Museum is a mobile children's museum established in 2021.
Hillsboro selected FLIP in November 2024 to become the permanent tenant of a vacant space in its Terrace Plaza building, according to the Hillsboro News-Times, with the city anticipating the new venue would draw more than 40,000 visitors a year once it opened in downtown Hillsboro. For now, though, it's the Oregon Zoo, not a new children's museum, that is stepping in to claim the Washington Park building where generations of Portland kids once spent their afternoons.
