Randall Museum in SF to reopen after $9 million renovation

View of displays in the Wild in California animal exhibit at Randall Museum in San Francisco. View of displays in the Wild in California animal exhibit at Randall Museum in San Francisco. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Randall Museum in SF to reopen after $9 million renovation 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Just a short walk down the breezy, broad hallways of the Randall Museum in San Francisco’s Corona Heights neighborhood, the squawking caws of jet-black crows and the rustling sounds of chickens idly scratching at sawdust quickly give way to the whirring of a state-of-the-art laser cutter.

It’s an apt juxtaposition for the freshly refurbished hands-on children’s museum, where science, art and the wonders of the natural world — including live animals — mingle seamlessly under one roof.

After two years of at times frustrating construction delays, the museum is finally gearing up for its grand reopening Sunday, when the learning center’s staff will show off the $9 million in recently completed renovations.

Grand reopening The Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, San Francisco, will reopen at 10 a.m Sunday. Go to its website for more information.

“This is a place where you can take kids that’s free, and you get an amazing educational experience and a fun time,” said Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who represents District Eight, where the Randall is located. “I’ve taken my daughter there countless times. It’s a jewel in my district,” he said.

Sheehy added that it was essential to have the museum open in time for the summer, when parents would be searching for activities for their kids. About 100,000 people come through the museum’s doors each year.

Among the new and improved amenities is a cutting-edge laboratory that houses the museum’s new laser cutter. The lab, also called the garage, is an altogether new space meant to spark kids’ curiosity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Inside, children can use computers to create designs that the laser cutter can create out of wood. Kids can go home with their own jigsaw puzzles, for example.

Tara Holmes, board president of Randall Museum Friends , which helps to promote the facility, said the STEM lab will help to push the museum “into the digital age.”

“It’s something we really wanted to push for,” she said.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Displays in the Wild in California exhibits, top, at Randall Museum...

Holmes’ group also helped raise $2.2 million for the renovation. An additional $5.5 million came from a state grant secured by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which owns the facility, and Randall Museum Friends.

Museum Director Chris Boettcher said that the designs for the new facility were carefully planned to create a free-flowing feel, so kids and their parents could feel comfortable wandering from exhibit to exhibit without the need of a guide or plan.

“What we’re really doing is fostering creativity, to look at your environment and see it in a new way, and empower you to create something or learn something and relate it back to your world,” he said.

The live animal exhibit, featuring a range of California-native mammals, birds and reptiles, has also been overhauled. Boettcher said that each animal enclosure has been reconfigured to represent one of the state’s habitats, like deserts, grasslands and oceans. The arrangement is also meant to depict the connections that exist between each of those habitats, which, together, create the mosaic of California’s ecosystem.

“For children growing up in the city that maybe can’t get to Yosemite or places like that, here they can experience and touch nature,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department. The museum also boasts an enlarged and refurbished ceramics room, which will offer a variety of classes, as well as a new cafe. Boettcher said there will be a free shuttle service sponsored by Google that will pick up kids from Rec and Park facilities on weekends and bring them to the museum.

The renovations were beset by delays, one of them a spat between the city and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that kept the Randall without power for months, adding to the project’s costs. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said the museum was an “innocent bystander” in a long-running fight between PG&E and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission over which agency will provide power to public buildings.

In April, Wiener sent a letter to PG&E requesting that the utility take “immediate steps” to get power to the Randall and the Noe Valley Town Square, which was also waiting for electrical services. Wiener also played a key role in the museum’s renovation, helping to secure money from the city’s general fund while he was a supervisor.

“I’m on cloud nine. That project was a true labor of love, for me and for a lot of people,” Wiener said. “It’s this magical thing right in the middle of our neighborhood that provides so much education to kids, for after-school programs, for summer programs — this is a very unique science-educational center,” he said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com