$32 million helps give children’s museum new home

Discovering a new home begins with discovering more dollars -- 32 million of them.

That's the amount of a new gift for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts from its primary donor, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, to enable construction of a building on the center compound to house the Lied Discovery Children's Museum. As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Saturday, the museum will move from its downtown, Las Vegas Boulevard home into the center in 2012.

The additional sum brings the foundation's donation to about $190 million and pushes the price tag of the Smith Center project, including various gifts, endowments and a donation from the city of Las Vegas, to around $502 million.

The nonprofit museum, which will drop "Lied" from its name to become simply the Discovery Children's Museum, will take up residence in what was originally planned to be a 650-seat theater for the Nevada Ballet Theatre. After the dance company decided to join the Las Vegas Philharmonic as tenants of the main 2,050-seat theater, the center shelved the small theater plans and grew interested in finding a museum for the space. The building will be called the Donald W. Reynolds Discovery Center.

"We looked at a number of museum opportunities," Smith Center President Myron Martin said at an event Wednesday at the museum to announce the move. The event included an appearance by Mayor Oscar Goodman.

"We felt the center's synergy with the Discovery Children's Museum was the best with our educational services," Martin said.

Of the foundation's initial donation, $24 million had been earmarked for the theater.

"We were able to take that $24 million and apply it to this project, so it was enough to build the core shell of the museum," Martin said of the building. "Then the Reynolds Foundation stepped up for the additional ($32 million) for the interiors and exhibits."

Foundation President Steven Anderson noted that "the money was sitting there to use for an alternative purpose and we told them, 'Go plan what you would put in place of the theater.' It's a perfect partnership because it incorporates education into the performing arts."

Construction on the new building, which will sit on a five-acre parcel at the southwest corner of the center's block of Symphony Park, is to begin in the fall. Under construction at Bonneville Avenue and Grand Central Parkway since May 2009, the center is set to open in spring 2012. However, the museum isn't set to debut until the following fall.

"I didn't want construction cranes and dirt floating around (when the center opens)," Martin said. "The building will be finished. While we open, they'll be inside preparing all their new exhibits."

Increasing the museum from its current 35,000 square feet to 58,000 square feet, the move promises creative expansion, executive director Linda Quinn said of the facility, which opened in 1990 and hosts exhibits in the arts, sciences, nature, music and the humanities.

"It will really change the way we house exhibits," Quinn said. "Now we have two floors, they're just open, one exhibit sits adjacent from another. The new building will have nine themed galleries that are contained. Not only will it contain the noise, but it give us the opportunity to change (exhibits) more often."

Moving out of its location in the Las Vegas Library building leaves space to fill.

"We hope the best for them," said Jeanne Goodrich, executive director of the Las Vegas Library-Clark County Library District. "We'll start talking with other appropriate organizations and government (departments) to see what ideas are out there, though it's not the best time to be putting square footage on the market. But we have a lot of time."

In addition to the main theater at the Smith complex, the museum will join a black box theater for children's and community events, cabaret space for jazz concerts and educational outreach facilities with classroom space.

The center is named for Fred. W. Smith, former Review-Journal executive and chairman of the Reynolds Foundation, and for his late wife, Mary B. Smith.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@review journal.com or 702-383-0256.