Ad commission seeks special election on museum bond

The Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission voted Monday to ask the Hot Springs Board of Directors to hold a special election on a $2 million bond issue to construct an exhibition gallery at Mid-America Science Museum.

The Hot Springs Board of Directors will be asked to approve an ordinance calling for the Sept. 11 election during its June 19 meeting.

If passed by the board of directors, the bond issue would be repaid through revenues generated by the city’s existing 3-percent advertising and promotion tax. The ad tax is levied on motels, hotels, restaurants and like businesses in the city.

The ballot issue would be a vote “for” or “against” the issuance of Mid-America Science Museum Improvement Bonds.

“The museum needs to continue to grow just so that we can serve more kids, more families with our hands-on, exciting educational opportunities,” said Diane LaFollette, executive director for the museum. “We think that one of the ways to get people in here is to have these exhibits on the floor. Unfortunately, the way that the museum is configured right now, we can’t do that.”

The museum currently has four permanent exhibits in its current exhibit hall which cannot be moved, she said.

“In order to serve more kids and get these exhibits in here, what we’d like to do is build a new exhibition gallery,” LaFollette said. “This is a new 7,000-squarefoot addition that we’re thinking about, with 5,000 of that as exhibit space. The rest of it is storage and bathrooms, a prep kitchen. … This would make us the largest science exhibit center in the state of Arkansas.”

LaFollette said the museum is already looking at exhibits to bring to Hot Springs which would require a temperature and humidity controlled environment. The new space would have a separate HVAC system from the rest of the museum, she said.

“It would be temperature and humidity controlled separately which would allow us to get some precious artifacts here that we can’t really get right now because we have a lot of humidity issues,” she said. “That would help us build on the Smithsonian Institution relationship that we have now.”

One example is the “Star Wars and the Power of Costume” exhibit, which is currently not traveling, but LaFollette said the museum is talking with the director of the exhibit to see if it could be brought to Arkansas. The exhibit is about design and taking design through engineering into reality, she said.

Another exhibit is “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit,” which would require the temperature and humidity control to protect and safely display actual artifacts from the recovery site, LaFollette said. The exhibit focuses on stories of survi-

vors and their experiences throughout the ordeal, while also discussing the archaeology and marine science involved.

Other potential exhibits include the “Hall of Heroes” and “Animation Academy.”

“Our plan is to have exhibits during the summer when we can capitalize on tourism and get people to come in and have a lot greater impact on the students and kids,” LaFollette said. “But during the school year, it would become a venue for seminars, workshops, multiday workshops, summer camps, professional development, and we could use it for our programming space, as well.”

The proposed floor plan is only an idea, she said, but shows the need for storage space to place the crates the traveling exhibits arrive in, as well as a prep kitchen for catering workshops and events.

LaFollette said the museum would plan to have an exhibit every summer which it has seed money and sponsorships to bring exhibits to the museum.

“Depending on what the topic is, sometimes it is really nice to have sponsorships and have their name out there,” she said.

If the issue passes, LaFollette said she hopes to have the project completed by 2019 in time for the museum’s 40th anniversary.

Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said this “will not be easy, since there will be no tax increase but we will tighten our belts to get it done.”

“Helping the museum qualify for national exhibits is not only good for our community and its children but it will also enhance our tourism product,” he said. “We have to get this done. We did this

10 years ago and it resulted in the museum getting a

$7.5 million dollar national grant that took them to a new level of excellence. This is a great opportunity and we must take advantage of it.”