WOW on schedule for soft opening by year's end

Wonders of Wildlife museum is pressing ahead with its $25 million expansion and renovation. The proof: the facility is currently lacking a middle.

“The center section has been demolished. The roof went down yesterday, actually,” said Peggy Smith, interim executive director and chief financial officer for WOW.

Workers will be concentrating on building out the foundation to expand the museum to the east and west, to a new size of roughly 200,000 square feet.

Construction plans also call for a standalone Conservation Education Center to house Springfield Public Schools’ Wonders of the Ozarks Learning Facility, or WOLF, program. That building will be located in the vacant area between Bass Pro Shops and the West Sunshine building – formerly a Kmart store – where WOW has office space, Smith said.

Another two-story building will connect Bass Pro and WOW, housing a new lobby and ticket sales.

“On the first level, visitors will be able to access the museum from Bass Pro. They’ll see the aquariums and will be drawn there,” Smith said.

The second level will let visitors travel between the museum and a completely renovated Wildlife Gallery at Bass Pro. The roofline for the Wildlife Gallery has been raised 14 feet, Smith said, and a North American wildlife exhibit, African wildlife exhibit, the Archery Hall of Fame and National Rifle Association exhibit will  be located within the gallery.

The project continues to move forward, with a soft reopening planned for December and a grand reopening in spring 2011, Smith said. The plan is to have the education center, main entry and Wildlife Gallery complete by December, with the main museum building opening in spring.

Exhibits will include a walk-through, salt water aquarium tunnel where sharks will swim over visitors’ heads, small shark touch tanks, a nocturnal swamp exhibit and butterfly aviary.