Let's begin this hour with a project not at its beginning and not at its end, but somewhere in the middle. The final steel beam for a new part of the Scott Family Amazeum is in place. The museum hosted a topping out ceremony Tuesday morning in Bentonville. The beam was hoisted near the roof, and a pair of men from Nabholz Construction Corporation secured it into position.
Rob Dodd, executive vice president of operations for Nabholz, says topping out the celebration of the completion of the skeleton of a structure is a centuries old construction tradition based in Scandinavia.
“When they came to America, they brought a lot of the traditions with them, and one of those was the topping out of a new structure. And in ancient Scandinavia, of course, everything was built out of wood. And ancient Scandinavians, believing the trees were their ancestors, thought they had to do something to appease the, you know, their tree dwelling ancestors that were used to construct the buildings. And so they picked an evergreen tree, which was considered a good spirit to put on the highest point of the building when it was finished.”
The topping out represents a milestone in the first major expansion for the museum since it opened a decade ago. The new building is called the Hangout, and an adjacent outdoor space will be called The Backyard.
Seth Dowell, capital campaign manager for the Amazeum, says when finished, the new features will expand on what the interactive museum dedicated to hands-on learning started ten years ago.
“It’s going to have a cafe and a really cool community space. It’s going to have a space specifically for ages zero to six. We’re calling the Early Learning Advancement Center. And so that space is going to be awesome for the youngest of our visitors. … And then after that, the second stage is going to be The Backyard. So we’re going to build outside what you usually see inside the wonderful Amazeum, exciting ways to explore and grow and get messy. There’s going to be opportunities to get in the mud and build some stuff with sticks and stones, and it’s going to be awesome.”
In of itself, watching a beam lifted into place isn’t the most exciting thing to watch. But for Sam Dean, executive director of the Amazeum, Tuesday’s exercise was exhilarating.
“So we’re excited to know that the bones, the physical concrete, the shape and form are here for you to see. Now we get to color within the lines. Well, actually, maybe we’ll bust out a couple lines because we’re the Amazeum, but we get a chance to really now see this fill out over the next year.”
Dean says the plan is to actually have the Hangout and The Backyard ready for public use by the end of this year. Since this is the Amazeum, don’t expect the finished building to be a conventional square box. Josh Siebert, co-founder of Modus Studio, the architecture firm that designed the building, says this structure will have whimsy and is inspired by a native Ozark fish.
“The Amazeum was always going to be something that we wanted to be inspired by, and let kids and students of all ages show up to the Amazeum, and it needed to be a building that was different and creative. And so what better to look at the brown trout of Arkansas? … we thought that it had a lot of features, both in form, color, and the way that the trout moves through the water. This building wanted to be something that inspired movement and fun and excitement.”
Siebert says the key is balancing the whimsy with the eventual reality.
“All right, so this has been a long time in the making. We’ve had a lot of charrettes and dream making with the Amazeum team, with ownership, with everybody that would come along and be a part of this. So as you sit down and dream up something, you have to make it a reality. So we’ve had great partners with Nabholtz coming in and taking it on and understanding that not all columns are going to be straight. They’re going to be different. Not all beams are going to be parallel to the ground. So we have to make it a reality. You got to shed water. You got to allow the building to function. It’s going to have openness on one side. It’s going to have openness on the other, so the students can play and get inspired by, you know, that idea of movement. So the building has a reflection of form, but at the same time has to function.”
Any idiosyncratic design elements will help solidify the Hangout as possessing the Amazeum DNA. Standing behind that final beam to be put in place Tuesday. Rob Dodd with Nabholz Construction couldn’t help but make a gentle joke about the less than conventional building outline.
“All right. I can’t believe that with all the non straight lines that are involved in these buildings. Then we picked a little simple straight beam to top it off with.”
And even that short straight one hundred and fourteen pound final beam comes with Amazeum inspired playfulness, two large googly eyes attached to the middle of the beam. Also ascending to the top of the building with the beam, a small evergreen tree keeping with topping out ceremony tradition, an American flag, and a vase of white roses honoring the late Linda Scott, an early and longtime champion of the museum.
The topping out represents a landmark for the museum. The expansion is a project that was in discussion before COVID-19. Executive Director Sam Dean says to get to this point, there had to be teamwork.
“It really takes a whole collection of people to make our dreams come true. In fact, that’s the true definition of creativity. It’s imagination put to work. So thinking about the Hangout and The Backyard, we’ve got, of course, our Amazeum team that has all of these incredible, creative, curious, imaginative ideas about ways that we want to work with science and arts to be able to be part of kids and families lives, you know, from the earliest of ages all the way through life. But then we need to bring in folks who can help provide shape to those dreams. So we’ve got designers, we’ve got our construction team, we’ve got community members who bring in their expertise. And it’s really this stone soup of people coming together, adding their skills to the overall pot that really kind of create this savory addition we’re adding called the Hangout.”
The campaign for the expansion is officially the Expanding Futures Capital Campaign, a $25 million fundraising effort. Seth Dowell says currently the campaign is at the $18 million mark. The plan is to be finished with the other $7 million in 18 months.
The Expanding Futures capital campaign, buoyed by a $3 million contribution from the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation as museum staff and supporters look forward to the late 2026 completion of the project. They say it’s a dream come true, a next phase for the museum. Sam Dean says considering the future is at the heart of the Amazeum mission.
“We don't just think about the idea that young kids here are going to be the folks who are powering the design groups, the construction groups, the future. We’re seeing this happen right now. We have kids who started ten years ago, who in camp are team members at the Amazeum. We have a team member who ten years ago is now mayor of a city south of us. Our hope is not just to be an Amazeum that grows you for today, but prepares you for an even more amazing tomorrow.”
Construction on the Hangout began in June 2025.
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