Wildlife museum, Civic Park to break ground

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Two major projects benefiting from a 1998 increase of the local hotel-motel tax are gearing up to break ground.

The Wonders of Wildlife museum will break ground in October, said Gary Ellison, its marketing and public relations director. Wonders of Wildlife is a shortened form of the museum's full name, the American National Fish and Wildlife Living Museum and Aquarium.

The $50 million museum is final-izing construction documents and hiring staff, Ellison said. It has hired Cambridge Seven Associates of Cambridge, Mass., as its architect and Turner Construction Company of Kansas City as its construction manager.

"As soon as we get the guaranteed, signed price for the project, then we will look at getting some bond financing in place to get us started," Ellison said.

The museum has a board of directors in place and has hired Bruce Colony as its operations manager. Colony will work with Turner Construction, which will set up an office in Springfield in September, Ellison said.

The museum's grand opening is scheduled for 2001. (For more information on the Wonders of Wildlife museum, see the Travel and Tourism column, page 34.)

Another project funded by the hotel-motel tax increase, passed in February 1998, is the Civic Park project.

The Civic Park project has several components: its first phase comprises 35 acres in center city. The city has been working to acquire the land for that 35 acres from the existing businesses there. So far, it has complete or pending agreements with three of the five businesses: DaBryan Coach Builders, Tri-States/Whiteley and Sears, which owns a warehouse in the area. The city is still working with the owners of the Greyhound Bus terminal on determining an acquisition price, said Benjamin Alexander, Civic Park project manager. The city is also still negotiating with Thompson Pontiac GMC Cadillac. The city and Thompson have a trial date set for November to work out an agreement on the price the city will pay for the Thompson property, Alexander said.

The city will close on the Tri-States property Nov. 1, at a price of $1.9 million, and on the DaBryan property Dec. 1, at a cost of $730,000, said city attorney Howard Wright. The city has already acquired the Sears warehouse.

Once all the property is acquired and the current tenants moved, the city will begin clearing the land. The properties are to be vacated by February 2000, Alexander said.

The project architect for Civic Park, LMN Architects, has also completed the concept design for phase I, Alexander said. Among phase I's elements are additional parking, greenspace and a water feature that is to be contributed by City Utilities. A study is under way to determine what type of parking will be used, and where it should go, Alexander said.

Prior to its work on the first phase, the city will complete a streetscape that will be part of Civic Park. The bid package for the streetscape project is now being finalized, Alexander said, and once that is complete, the package will go to City Council for the bid award.

"We would like to do a groundbreaking in September, and it's our goal to have the streetscape completed by January," Alexander said.

The streetscape, which will extend along Boonville from the square to Water Street, will cost about $400,000.