After seven years of renovation and expansion, America’s Wildlife Museum and Aquarium, formerly Wonders of Wildlife, is scheduled to reopen in spring 2016.
Located at the northeast corner of Bass Pro Shops’ flagship store, 1935 S. Campbell Ave., the expansion would encompass some 315,000 square feet of freshwater and saltwater aquariums and museum space. Media were invited for a sneak peek of the museum yesterday in conjunction with the 10th anniversary Professional Outdoor Media Association conference.
“We embarked on reworking and creating this facility, and everybody here is going, ‘What the heck is taking so long with this project and what’s going on?’” Bass Pro Shops founder John Morris said during the announcement, addressing the lengthy construction schedule and several changes in deadlines over the years. “We had a project here before, and we feel like we’ve got a chance to create a really national conservation destination attraction.”
When complete, the museum would feature a mile of paths and walkways leading visitors through such features as an ocean-themed tank with a hollowed-out center, a 30-foot deep coral reef drop tank and over 40 exhibits, dioramas and biomes filled with 35,000 live animals, including black bears, otters and countless aquatic creatures in recreations of their natural environments.
Museum officials declined to disclose the cost of the facility, but confirmed it has been privately funded. In 2014, the entire renovation project was reported to cost north of $80 million, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
Morris and museum board members say the facility is modeled after the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
“I just (have) to say that it took 13 years to get that place complete,” Morris said. “By that rate, we’re kind of on a lightning-fast pace.”
Other conservation and outdoor groups that have partnered with the museum will move some of their components to Springfield.
Those include the Dania Beach, Fla.-based International Game Fish Association’s Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum and the Cody, Wyo.-based Boone & Crockett Club’s National Collection of Heads and Horns, which dates back to 1906 and club founder Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency.
Springfield also will play host to the Boone & Crockett Club’s North American Big Game Awards, which are held every three years. The next event is slated to be held in Springfield in July 2016.
The new additions will join already completed phases of the museum campus, including the John A. and Genny Morris Conservation Education Center, the Natural Archery Hall of Fame and the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum. The latter, which has had over 500,000 visitors since moving to Bass Pro from Halifax, Va., in 2013, is the kind of track record Morris aims to emulate.
“About half the population of the country lives within a day’s drive of where we are and not everybody has the chance maybe to go to New York City to see the Museum of Natural History,” Morris said. “We hope it becomes, with all these different components, a must-see destination for the 60 million people in this country who love to hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors.”
One room of the facility open to the media prior to the announcement was the Shipwreck Gallery, a conservation-themed room of aquariums recreating ocean habitats complete with an 86,000-gallon, two-story saltwater tank featuring a model sunken ship as its centerpiece. When complete, it also will be surrounded by a 30,000-gallon stingray touch tank. All told, the aquarium space will hold 1.3 million gallons of water.
“With aquariums, everyone is trying to do something different, and something edgy,” said Allan Marshall, museum director of live exhibits. “The key is finding a new way to engage people and teach them about conservation at the same time.”[[In-content Ad]]
