LAKELAND, Fla. — A new family experience coming to Polk County.

The city of Lakeland will soon have a new, state-of-the-art children’s museum with exhibits to help kids with learning disabilities.

Bill Tinsely, president of Bonnet Springs Park in Lakeland. The new exploration museum will sit at the heart of it.

That location is set to serve as the largest source of outdoor entertainment and education in Polk County.

“The Florida Children’s Museum is going to be that anchor building to the park but it brings everything that we envision into the park, in terms of being a bridge to the community,” Tinsely said. “This is the biggest project I’ve ever been a part of.”

Previously, Tinsley said the 168 acres was an abandoned rail yard but the new plans for the land will make Bonnet Springs Park a destination.

 At 47,000 square feet, the new facility is a massive upgrade from the small downtown location where the museum is located now. That is something Museum CEO Kerry Falwell said she’s proud of.

“Exploration children’s museum has been around since 1991, we’ve served almost 2 million families,” Falwell said. “We have about 55,000 annual visitors and we were in a physical location where we couldn't grow anymore.”

Now, $17 million later, the new children’s museum will have a little something for everyone.

“We have a gallery called TBD and we are capitalizing on Tik Tok and Instagram reels,” Falwell said. “We want pre-teens to be able to explore their social and emotional intelligence — in a way that meets their needs.”

Kerry Falwell said the museum is spending about $600,000 on intentional inclusivity, targeting everything from how patterns are laid on the floor to how to sensor and limit sunlight coming in.

The museum is set to open in spring of 2022.