Ailing 16th Street Mall nabs Museum of Illusions as global franchise expands

Museum of Illusions, the world’s largest chain of personal museums, will open a location on the sixteenth Road Mall in early 2023 as a part of an aggressive growth into new markets.

The immersive “edutainment” idea, which was launched in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2015, now has outposts in almost 40 cities around the globe, in line with a press assertion, and is hoping to achieve 100 over the subsequent 4 years. The Denver museum, at 951 sixteenth St., will supply “mentally-stimulating optical illusions, 3D holograms, brain-puzzling displays and interactive phantasm rooms” throughout 6,229 sq. toes of area, officers wrote.

“Denver is a novel metropolis with an appreciation for brand new experiences and contemporary views, and the brand new Denver Museum of Illusions location is poised to supply that for residents and guests from throughout,” stated Museum of Illusions CEO Jonathan Benjamin in an announcement.

The museum is a corporate-owned and franchise enterprise that particularly checked out Denver as a promote it wanted to fill globally, in line with a publicist.

The pedestrian thoroughfare of Denver’s 1.25 mile-long sixteenth Road Mall has suffered during the last two years as pandemic shutdowns and remote-work shifts have pushed workplace employees out of town’s core.

The Downtown Denver Partnership will quickly launch a second part of its Pop-Up Denver program, which makes use of a part of a $2.4 million funding funded by the federal authorities’s pandemic assist bundle, The Related Press reported. The plan contains free lease for not less than three months to fill empty storefronts.

“The model’s growth into Denver is thrilling for the group in addition to for the native governance and companions dedicated to revitalizing sixteenth Road Mall (sixteenth Road Mall Venture) and making it a prime Denver attraction for a dynamic retail setting for years to return,” stated Sean Kulzer, senior vp at Tether Advisors, which secured a 10-year lease for the corporate.

The brand new Denver location is corporate-owned and never a franchise, and the corporate plans to rent between 9 and 16 workers, in line with the Denver Enterprise Journal.

Museum of Illusions can also be trying to compete in Denver’s extremely aggressive and fast-growing immersive leisure market, becoming a member of big-ticket points of interest comparable to Meow Wolf Denver’s Convergence Station and the just-launched world premiere of “Theater of the Thoughts,” co-created by Tony-winning musician David Byrne.

The town at the moment boasts home-grown theatrical productions massive and small, and excursions launched from (or not less than continuously visiting) Denver that redeploy well-known artists and their artwork in “immersive” settings — see Frida Kahlo, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Monet and others.

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