FAYETTEVILLE -- A $5 million dollar gift from Tyson Foods Inc. and the Tyson family will help fund an approximately 60,000-square-foot research facility for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, officials announced Monday.
The Don Tyson Center for Agricultural Sciences, with an expected total cost of about $16 million, will house laboratory space, two greenhouses and a 300-seat, multipurpose room. The site, where ground is expected to be broken this year, will also host community educational programs.
"It will be a showcase for the division, for the University of Arkansas System and for the state," Donald Bobbitt, UA System president, said at a news conference announcing the donation and the naming of the facility. Division funds and other private funds are expected to pay for the remainder of the cost.
The center -- approved by UA System trustees in September -- will also serve as the administrative home for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the division's primary research arm that has been based in Fayetteville for more than 125 years. The division's agriculture-related holdings include about 725 acres of land in Fayetteville.
The structure, to be two or three stories, will rise adjacent to Garland Avenue in Fayetteville. It will be just north of West Knapp Drive and the Pauline Whitaker Animal Science Arena, where the news conference was held.
"The gift and this facility will advance Arkansas agriculture into the distant future and help us compete in a very competitive global world of agricultural research for many generations to come," said Mark Cochran, the division's vice president for agriculture.
The division is based in Little Rock and operates research stations and extension centers around the state.
"I'm especially pleased that this contribution will support our watershed research and education programs, which translate into cleaner water and specific efforts to protect our state's natural resources," Cochran said. In January, Tyson Food Inc. agreed to pay nearly $540,000 in a settlement with the Missouri attorney general's office after a wastewater handling incident at one of the company's poultry-processing facilities. Missouri officials had said the incident led to the death of at least 100,000 fish.
John Tyson, son of Don Tyson, said the gift is meant to help researchers do work that makes a difference.
"Dad always used to say, when you get a chance, you try to make a difference," said John Tyson, chairman of the company's board of directors. "Several of our friends have heard Dad say, you can always name something after me when I'm gone. It's bittersweet that he is gone, but it is an honor that we are able to give this contribution to his school, to the agricultural community that he loved so much."
Don Tyson died in 2011. The Springdale poultry company founded in 1935 by his father, John W. Tyson, has grown to become one of the largest food companies in the world.
A few buildings on the main UA campus have been named after members of the Tyson family, with the company also supporting various UA endeavors. John Tyson also served for nearly six years on the UA System's board of trustees before resigning in 2013. But the $5 million gift is the largest gift from Tyson Foods to a UA campus or entity, according to UA officials.
Bobbitt said "such partnerships will be absolutely critical to the future success of the division, the University of Arkansas System and agribusiness in the state."
He continued: "With two partners that have stood together since Tyson Foods started in 1935, this is not the first time our two organizations have worked together, and I know it won't be the last."
In an interview, Tyson declined to say how much of the gift is considered a company donation. The facility can help better attract top researchers, Tyson said.
He said he has no interest in asking that a specific type of study be done by researchers at the center.
"Out of those individuals will come good ideas," Tyson said.
In an interview, Cochran said four water researchers and their teams will be among those based at the new center, with studies to include looking at poultry litter at farms and water quality.
Cochran said groups of schoolchildren will be invited to the center and educational outreach related to the Meadow Valley Trail will be offered to the community.
"As they walk through and get their exercise off of it, we'd like to have them kind of have an opportunity to kind of understand what it is that we're doing and why it's important," Cochran said.
Little Rock-based WER Architects and Conway-based Nabholz Construction are signed on to complete the project.
"That's a goal that we have, that it be very aesthetically pleasing, and it will be a very prominent feature out on the landscape," Cochran said.
Metro on 03/03/2015