Today of all days, Clark Boccone of Brownsburg was glad to experience the new welcome center at The Children’s Museum.

Boccone, who has been a member of the museum for the past two years, had just dropped off his eldest son at hockey camp and his daughter at gymnastics camp, but he still had his hands full with 2-year-old triplets Adam, Landon and Ryan in a triple-seat stroller, and it was raining outside.

Boccone and his boys were just four of the 100 or more people gathered at the museum this morning for the dedication of the museum’s welcome center, including the skywalk for guiding children across busy Illinois Street and protecting them from bad weather and traffic. The last time Boccone was here, it was all under construction.

“It looks awesome,” he said, “and it was great that we didn’t have to be outside today.”

The $15.6.million welcome center officially opens Saturday. The improvements and additions were paid for in part by $12.6 million of federal funds secured with the help of the late congresswoman Julia Carson.

Indianapolis leaders, including Mayor Greg Ballard and architect Vop Osili, a member of the museum’s board of trustees, paid tribute to Carson this morning, recognizing her as a longtime activist and leader in the museum’s neighborhood as well as a trenchant supporter of the museum.

Highlights of the new center, along with the skywalk, include a “great wonders” sculpture garden, a rain garden for treating runoff water and returning it to the water table, and general improvements and expansions of existing features, such as the Info Zone Library and the sack lunch area.

The museum’s CEO and president, Jeffrey Patchen, said Carson’s work would be felt by the 1 million annual visitors passing through the new center on their way into the institution.

Carson’s grandson, congressman Andre Carson, shared some of his memories of the museum, from the days when the area was surrounded by riff-raff and there was “a scuffle or two.”

“One of the great things about the congresswoman was the potential she recognized in all children,” he said of his late mother.