Design work to “reimagine” the Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center is underway with the renovation estimated to be complete in March 2027, according to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC).
The AGFC in early September signed a contract with Sterling, Va.-based Explus Inc. to design, fabricate and install new exhibits in part of the 14,000-square-foot nature center that was built in 2006. The contract amount is “not to exceed $2 million.” Explus projects include exhibit work at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, FDR Presidential Library and Museum, National World War II Museum, and the National World War I Museum.
The center was built on 170 acres of land that was part of Fort Chaffee and opened in 2005. The facility and property features Wells Lake, a fishing destination, trails, and a nature center that features game and nongame animal displays, a 1,200-gallon aquarium with native Arkansas fish, other exhibits and a classroom for educational programs.
Fort Smith-based Pradco Outdoor Brands donated $150,000 to begin the “Reimagine the River Valley” fundraising campaign, and the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority donated $500,000 in April 2024 for the nature center work. Other major contributors to the project include the Arvest Foundation, the Boland family, First National Bank of Fort Smith, the Rumsey family, the Westphal family and the Whitt family.
Initial renovation plans included updating of outdoor facilities, paddling areas, angling areas, outdoor exhibits, tire repair stations on the biking, an active beehive, birdwatching areas, and hiking trails that will also be places where families or individuals can picnic.
The initial estimate was a renovation cost of no more than $3 million. Spencer Griffith, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told Talk Business & Politics they expect the cost will be between $2 million and $3 million, but likely closer to $2 million. He said AGFC officials have sought a “balance of trying to do the right thing of value to the community and a really cool experience, but being really cost-conscious about how we go about doing it.”
“The current project timeline is that we are moving from overall exhibit theme development to individual, detailed scoping, budgeting, and design of the exhibit areas,” Griffith noted. “Our theme is focused on basic needs of living things like shelter or home and the habitat around it that provides homes, water and food. We will be featuring conservation and wildlife through critters that live in the water, at the water’s edge, underground, above ground and in the canopies above.”
Part of the new renovation plan includes exhibits on broader aspects of nature and the AGFC mission, and not just focusing on information about nature in the Fort Smith metro, according to Griffith.
“We said we wanted to come in to this project and do a meaningful update to the project, to the exhibit space, that provided a little more education about where we are today, the work we are doing, the importance of conservation and habitat, and through the lens of 2025 and not necessarily through the way people were looking at the contributions of nature centers in 1996.”
The AGFC nature center program was funded by a one-eighth-cent conservation tax approved by Arkansas voters in 1996. The campaign was championed by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee and First Lady Janet Huckabee, the parents of Gov. Sarah Sanders. In addition to Fort Smith, there are nature centers in Casscoe, Columbus, Jonesboro, Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Ponca, Springdale, and Yellville.
