Science Center Plans Unveiled : Museum: $37.5-million, hands-on facility would include a shuttle mock-up, a mammoth ant farm and giant-screen theater. Pledges and donations totaling $14 million are reported.

Plans for a science center were unveiled this week by local museum representatives, who envision an ambitious, $37.5-million project along the lines of a western Smithsonian Institution full of exhibits, including a mock-up of the space shuttle, a huge ant farm and giant-screen theater in downtown Santa Ana.

At Monday’s City Council meeting, representatives of the Discovery Science Center--a proposed offshoot of the existing Discovery Museum--revealed preliminary designs for a three-story, 80,000-square-foot, hands-on center to be built at 20th and Main streets, just south of the Bowers Museum.

Aimed at spurring interest in science among youth, the museum--featuring health, aerospace, environment and other science exhibits--would be expected to attract up to 750,000 visitors a year.

Although organizers still need to raise about $23 million for construction, spokeswoman Karen Johnson said project coordinators have been buoyed by the response from supporters who donated money based on nothing more than the concept of such a center.

So far, the project has received more than $14 million in pledges and donations, including $10 million from Santa Ana, $750,000 from the county and $1.3 million from the McDonnell Douglas Foundation and the company’s employee community fund, Johnson said. Since 1989, the Santa Ana-based Robert Sharp Co., a consulting firm, has coordinated the fund raising, soliciting donations from science and technology companies and donors who have contributed to the Discovery Museum in the past.

The council, sitting as the city Redevelopment Agency, has considered the center as part of a planned museum district in the area. The designs presented Monday are tentative. Final plans will not be reviewed by the city until the fund-raising campaign has progressed.

The city’s $10-million pledge is the largest thus far. It would cover a donation of 3 acres and the city’s agreement to build the museum’s parking garage. Funding has been approved by the Redevelopment Agency.

“We have had the most incredible response from prospective donors, educators and elected officials,” Johnson said. “The interesting reaction was, ‘Why haven’t you done this sooner?’ “We raised $14.5 million without having a model of the building or the exhibits.”

The commitment to build the multimillion-dollar facility is a bold move in light of the May closure of the county’s Museum of Natural History and Science--less than six months after its opening reception.

The Natural History Foundation of Orange County, which operated the private museum, blamed the sluggish economy, the Gulf War and the museum’s location in a newly developed corporate center in Aliso Viejo for the closing of the 32,000-square-foot, $2-million facility.

If the money is raised and construction begins on schedule as proposed in spring, 1993, the science center could welcome its first visitors in spring, 1995. Enthusiastic city officials said they support the plan and pledged to help the museum reach that goal.

“I’m really impressed by not only their plan, but with like facilities (such as the Smithsonian) and the fact that they create curiosity in the minds of the kids,” Councilman Richards L. Norton said Tuesday. “It tantalizes their curiosity and makes them want to know more about life and the world around them. It’s an incredible approach to stimulating their interests.

“I see it as an opportunity for our kids to get something they wouldn’t ordinarily get, (which could) make the difference between a potential gang member or a potential scientist. I’m a great supporter of it,” he said.

Johnson, who is also director of the Discovery Museum, said the new center’s exhibits would focus on health, space and flight, communications and the environment. Each of the center’s three floors would be devoted to specific areas of study, such as air and space, land and water, in a way to show that “learning about science is fun,” she said.

T An aquarium and other water exhibits are planned for the first floor. The second flood would have the chick hatchery and the ant farm, which would thrive beneath a fabricated tree and have viewing ports. On the third floor, officials envision visitors flying simulated space missions in an exhibit dedicated to the memory of the Challenger astronauts.

The building would also house a food court and the county’s first IMAX theater, boasting a screen 60 feet high and 80 feet wide.

Plans for outdoor exhibits include a walk-through maze, a radar-gun exhibit--in which visitors would clock the speed of traffic on Main Street--and a “water rocket” exhibit that would challenge one to four people to pump water fast enough to shoot a projectile into the air.

Maureen Allen, an Irvine Unified School District science teacher, said the museum would greatly improve science education among county students.

“I’m really excited about it,” she said. “I grew up in L.A., and I spent a lot of time in the Museum of Science and Industry, and we never had anything like that around here. It’s long overdue.”

She predicted that families would flock to the museum because “it will be accessible to kids. They can ride their bikes or take public transit. It will be a major event on a Saturday afternoon, because there will be new things going on all the time. It won’t be a onetime visit.”

She also said the museum’s design and exhibits would encourage “big idea,” or concept, learning instead of memorization of “factoids.”

Students “will be allowed to touch and interact with the exhibits,” Allen said. “Through the manipulation of different exhibits, they’ll understand a little more about their world.”

Proposed Museum

Plans announced this week for a $37.5 museum include an aquarium, a space shuttle simulator and the county’s first IMAX theater.