Bob Workman at his previous post
What’s the Flint Hills Discovery Center, we all wonder.
According to its website, it will be “a focal point of the South End Redevelopment [that] will offer a unique
tourism experience that celebrates the history, culture and heritage of
the Flint Hills and Tallgrass Prairie.” It’s in Manhattan. (That would be Manhattan, Kansas.)
Although Bob Workman won’t assume his new post as director of the center until January, he will (according to Monday’s press release announcing his appointment) “immediately become an active participant in key discussions while he completes his transition from Arkansas.”
That would be Bentonville, AR, where he was executive director of Alice Walton‘s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art until his surprise resignation last January. There he was overseeing creation of a facility to house the megabucks Wal-Mart heiress’ masterpiece collection.
In Manhattan, he’ll be overseeing “all aspects of building and exhibit design and
construction of the Discovery Center….Workman will also lead an approximately $4-5 million fundraising campaign to generate the remaining funds needed to complete the facility as envisioned.”
According to a document on its website, Flint Hills’ capital budget is $22.9 million for a 35,000-square-foot facility. By contrast, as of about a year ago, Alice, members of her family and a family foundation had given $317 million to Crystal Bridges for the development of the 100,000-square-foot museum, as Workman revealed in his deposition in the court battle over the fate of Fisk University’s Stieglitz collection (in which Crystal Bridges seeks to purchase a half-share).
This downsizing is a homecoming of sorts for Bob, who will assume his post in January: He’s a Kansas native.