From dreams to reality: Indiana Dinosaur Museum opens in South Bend

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The new Indiana Dinosaur Museum (IDM) opened today in South Bend after several years of planning, development and setbacks mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Located off the intersection of U.S. 20 and St. Joseph Valley Parkway and only seven minutes away from South Bend International Airport, the 18,000-square-foot museum is only one of the new additions to the 90-acre property.

The museum features 43 dinosaur sculptures, 30 skeletons, a couple of snakes, tortoises and even a chameleon. Visitors can watch eggs hatch in the Avian Dinosaur Nursery. With a museum/theater focus, tours begin with a video of Tarner giving a brief overview of his vision for the dinosaur attraction and inviting visitors to continue dreaming.

“I have mixed emotions. I’m very excited. I want to inspire kids that they can do anything,” said Mark Tarner, the museum’s founder and CEO of South Bend Chocolate Co. “My dad taught me how to be a candy maker, and I taught myself and asked other people to teach me how to be a paleontologist. You don’t need a degree to do this; you just need determination, experience and applied knowledge.”

After taking up paleontology as a hobby, Tarner, decided to make his collection of rare finds available to the public, birthing the initial dream for the museum. Then he decided to throw in his other passion in the mix: chocolate making. The gigantic nature of dinosaurs and the mystery behind chocolate centers are some of IDM’s allure.

Indiana First Lady Janet Holcomb, South Bend Mayor James Mueller and his wife, Kellye Mitros, several city and county officials along with other South Bend stakeholders attended a private reception celebrating the opening of the museum on Thursday evening.

“When there were skeptics in the early days when it was just empty lots and a lot of dreams from Mark, there was a lot of talk,” Mueller said. “But at the core, this is an economic development deal, a traditional one where a very successful business, the South Bend Chocolate Co., is relocating and expanding. Then on top of that, there’s this big draw for the dinosaur museum, the chocolate museum, and all the grounds here, the bison included.”

The latest north central Indiana attraction is also the new home for South Bend Chocolate Co.’s 60,000-square-foot factory. The development also features the soon-to-be-opened South Bend Public House restaurant, South Bend Farms, where patrons can purchase baked goods, jams and jellies, an artisan village and the Continental Divide Nature Park for hiking.

Melissa Florian—social media manager by day, animal caretaker by night and everything in between—spends her time making sure everything runs smoothly. Florian feeds the two snakes little mice for dinner, takes care of the tortoises and ensures the dinosaur music doesn’t stop.

Florian said the museum had sold over 500 tickets since it opened, including three yearly memberships purchased by the St. Joe County Public Library to enable folks who are unable to afford a regular ticket experience the museum.

Tarner expects patrons to leave with awe and wonder after visiting IDM, but some visitors can leave with more, their very own fossil find. The U-Dig is Tarner’s favorite experience at the museum because of how it puts the hands in “hands-on.”

Tarner is also looking to develop a destination hotel that will elevate the museum experience in the future.

“We’re on the route from the south to Traverse City and Makinac [in Michigan]. So we think we’re going to get a lot of summer traffic,” Tarner said. “We need some really good hotels out here and there aren’t many on the west side of South Bend.”

Across the several attractions, the business is expected to create about 150 jobs, attract tourists to the area and bolster economic growth on the city’s west side. 

Over the next couple of years, the west side is also expected to see an uptick in investment dollars due to the planned General Motors/Samsung SDI elective vehicle battery plant and Amazon data centers. 

Tarner estimates that he spent about $14 million of his personal funds on the project, with additional funds of over $4 million coming from the city of South Bend.

“We see this as a huge addition to our inventory on the tourism side as it could bring 150,000 visitors and my team has been in the trenches with him, trying to get started, trying to help them bring resources and bring attention,” South Bend Regional Chamber CEO Jeff Rea said. “But our real work begins now. We want them to be successful and we’re gonna do everything we can to get visitors to come and experience it.”

Describing it as a wonderful example of public-private partnerships, Rea recognized the input from all the different government and private institutions that contributed to the project.

Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, rising prices and missed grant opportunities, Tarner is pleased to see his dream come alive at a level that he describes as “top shelf.”

The 90-acre property sits on the Saint Lawrence River Continental Divide and overlooks the University of Notre Dame. It features a park that is 840 feet above sea level at its highest point. Four trails provide scenic views, including a herd of grazing bison. Tarner added that the herd includes one male from Canada and five females from the Yellowstone herd in LaGrange, Indiana.

Visitors can also experience a time-limited exhibit of original movie props from Jurassic Park, a personal collection that Don Szczodrowski, who lives in New Carlisle, Indiana, loaned to the museum. The exhibit includes Chris Pratt’s Marlin Model 895 SBL Rifle from Jurassic World and the Clever Girl Spas Shotgun from the original Jurassic Park movie in 1993.

Forever a serial entrepreneur, Tarner, to the chagrin of his wife, Julie, is already mulling over what story he’s writing next.

Mark Tarner is also this week’s guest on the Business & Beyond podcast with Gerry Dick. You can listen to the full episode by clicking here.