HOT SPRINGS -- The keys to Mid-America Science Museum's new free-standing traveling exhibit hall were symbolically handed over in an appropriately socially distant fashion Thursday after the construction crew finished the project that began last fall.
The new 8,750-square-foot traveling exhibit hall was constructed using proceeds from a bond issue city voters authorized in September 2018.
A resolution approved by the Hot Springs Board of Directors in September 2019 awarded Integrity Construction of Arkansas a $1,578,000 contract to build the exhibition hall. A groundbreaking was held Oct. 7, 2019.
"The building was intended and will be used for traveling exhibits, and those are exhibits that we will get mostly every summer, and sometimes more often than that," Mid-America Executive Director Diane LaFollette said. " ... I think we've had a great team working on the project, and I appreciate so much the citizens of Hot Springs voting for us to be able to build this, and I think they're going to be so pleased with how it looks."
LaFollette said the exhibit space will be 5,000 square feet.
"That will allow us to get 5,000 square feet of science-based exhibits, and sometimes different kinds of topics as well -- maybe art, maybe history, all kinds of things that are available to us throughout the country. We'll be able to bring these exhibits in, and that will make Mid-America the largest venue for science exhibits in the state."
Although the museum is currently closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, LaFollette said officials are hopeful to reopen "once the governor lifts the restrictions and allows people to open through the phased plans he has mentioned."
The new exhibition hall's first exhibit, "Bionic Me," will arrive May 22.
"It's about the technological interface with the human body," LaFollette said. "So it's how technology can enhance and improve and augment the human body, and it's cutting-edge and has a lot of components in it that I've never seen before, and I'm thrilled to be able to bring it to Hot Springs."
The exhibit, traveling from Houston, was expected to arrive May 8 but has been delayed because of the pandemic.
"We will be ready when we're allowed to reopen and then everyone will be able to come in and see the exhibit," LaFollette said. "I think it's going to be a great relief and opportunity for people to get out, and we'll have something new to offer, and we're so pleased with it."
Metro on 04/24/2020