The Frisco CDC on Oct. 16 officially entered into a lease agreement that will bring the National Videogame Museum to Frisco.

Assistant to the City Manager Ben Brezina said staff hopes to have a design for the back-of-house space in the Frisco Discovery Center for approval by the CDC in January. The renovations will split the 15,000-square-feet of back-of-house space between the VHM (about 10,000 square feet) and Frisco arts (about 5,000 square feet).

The goal is to have the NVM open and operational by April, although the exact date will depend on construction, Brezina said.

"We are super excited to make it happen, to bring some pretty great industry and a lot of visitors from Frisco, outside Frisco, outside Dallas and even outside of Texas," said Una McKeen, the museum's development director. "Our goal is to support science, technology, engineering, math and art we want to make sure we are providing Frisco kids opportunities for education."

McKeen said because the museum is going to be smaller than originally planned (10,000 square feet instead of 15,000 square feet), the summer camps that were going to take place in Frisco will now take place at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The goal with the "1.0 version" of the museum is to make it sustainable and get a revenue stream up and running, McKeen said. In the lease agreement, the NVM has agreed to begin planning the bigger "version 2.0" of the museum in Frisco, which McKeen said will involve the NVM going out for bigger sponsors in the video game industry.

Highlights from the lease agreement include:

The initial lease is for two years at a rate of $1 per year, similar to the deal the CDC has with the Sci-Tech Discovery Center, which is also located in the Frisco Discovery Center. The lease is renewable for two additional two-year periods, also at a rate of $1 per year.

The CDC will provide a maximum of $800,000 for finish-out of the back-of-house space and construction of 75 additional parking spaces.

The CDC will also provide a matching grant for $100,000 for museum start-up costs.

The Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau will provide a matching grant of $100,000 for finish-out of the space and display units.

The NVM will be responsible for paying utility bills for their lease space and provide $200,000 in matching funds for finish out of the space and display units.

The NVM is also providing its museum collection, valued at $2 million.