Split Rock Studios, a Minneapolis-based company that focuses on exhibits and displays for facilities such as the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission nature centers, will meet with agency officials Wednesday to discuss ideas for the Northwest Arkansas Nature and Education Center in Springdale.
The nature center is planned for a 61-acre plot between Interstate 49 and 40th Street. The main architecture firm for the project is Fennell and Purifoy of Little Rock. Ecological Design Group, which has offices in Rogers and Little Rock, is the landscape architecture firm.
The size of the center depends on funding. Game and Fish has $10 million committed to the project, which includes $5 million pledged by Johnelle Hunt of Springdale and matched by Game and Fish and the Game and Fish Foundation.
A targeted funding amount of $15 million would allow construction of a 28,000-square-foot main complex with a variety of exhibits, three covered pavilion areas, nature trails and a 3D archery and regular archery range, according to Doug Newcomb, chief of education at Game and Fish.
He said agency officials have had two monthly meetings with the architects.
"They hope to have the master plan for the property and the facility by the end of July. During May they'll be laying things out where the buildings are sited, where the trails are going in, where the pavilions would go for outdoor education classrooms, where the parking lot would be," Newcomb said.
The land that will house the center originally belonged to the Springdale water and sewer district, then was deeded to the City of Springdale, which in turn donated it to Game and Fish, contingent on it being used for conservation and education. Fred Brown, chairman of the agency's panel of commissioners, revealed plans for the center when he took over as chairman in July 2016.
Newcomb said planners are working with the City of Springdale to try to include a spur off the Razorback Greenway trail to the nature center and to build a mountain bike park and city park west of I-49. Newcomb said the concept would be for the spur to pass through the nature center property.
Among the exhibit plans, Newcomb said, would be a focus on quail habit with native grasses and vegetation, caves of Northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks, a fisheries exhibit showing the impact on streams in the area and an exhibit on native bears.
Sports on 04/25/2017