Preliminary Marshals Museum design unveiled (Updated)

The Marshals Museum Board of Directors and the public were given a glimpse Thursday (April 23) of the proposed design for the museum building.

Thursday’s meeting represented a major step in the effort to build the Marshals Museum in Fort Smith.

Peter Kuttner with Cambridge 7 Associates, one of the two architectural firms hired to design the museum, delivered an almost 60-minute presentation in which he said the basic design was built around the “star” of the Marshals badge. The building features several roof structures that mimic the look of a star segment, and each roof “protects a different function” of the museum.

The “spire” portion of the roof is 8-stories tall.

The Thursday meeting is the “synthesis” phase of the building design effort, with the fourth and final phase being “refinement,” Kuttner explained.

Sandi Sanders, project director for the U.S. Marshals Museum, said the board would vote on the design at a June 9 meeting.

A price tag to for the entire project, including the building, exhibits, landscaping, furniture and fixtures and other essentials, could be as high as $50 million, Kuttner said. Previous estimates had the cost ranging between $30 million and $40 million.

The roughly 50,000-square-foot building includes a large lobby space that would allow for up to 200 to be seated at formal dinners associated with fundraisers, Kuttner noted.

Sanders and board members said the space for fundraising events is important, not only for the museum, but as a community resource.

The building is to be categorized into three separate exhibit spaces: “Frontier Marshals” featuring the beginning and early history; “Marshals Today,” which highlights aspects of the modern U.S. Marshals Service; and “America Divided,” which seeks to highlight the role of Marshals during difficult times in U.S. history.

Other aspects of the building include:
• Retail space: Some museums generate 40% of revenue from retail sales, Kuttner explained.

• Small cafe: The small area would provide a space for people to rest in an area near a terrace that stretches to the Arkansas River.

• Hall of Honor and reflecting pool: This area would be a “contemplative and quiet” space that recognizes Marshals who died in service or Marshals who made great contributions to the service.

• Theater and classroom space: The space could be used to provide programs for area public school students and lecture series.

“We really felt this would be a design that would capture the imagination of people around the United States,” said Doug Babb, Marshals Museum board member and chairman of the board’s design committee.

Kuttner said the exhibit space would be made flexible so “each (visitor) trip can be different every time.”

The responses from the board and public will lead to “another round of refinement” and the “testing of assumptions,” Kuttner said. Such refining will be delivered to the board for consideration at its June 9 meeting.

Dick O’Connell, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas, said the building design “is truly marvelous” and will help in the raising of money to build and operate the facility.

“We can all now see what this is going to look like,” O’Connell said. “As a Marshal, I just want to say I’m very impressed (with the design). … We were given the iconic structure we were looking for.”