Wonders of Science on Way for Kids

Amid a sea of bright-yellow hard hats, with strains of Dixieland playing in the background, a Bobcat demolition truck Sunday rammed through the makeshift doors of an old furniture store to make way for a $26-million science learning center for children.

It was more a symbolic gesture and fund-raiser than a demolition, but the event marked the first stage of the store’s metamorphosis into the 40,000-square-foot Discovery Science Center.

Guests at the ceremony included major donors to the center and local, state and county elected officials, all of whom donned hard hats and grabbed sledgehammers to begin knocking down the walls of the furniture store. Part of the existing structure will be incorporated into the center.

With $11.8 million raised in the first $13-million stage and another $13 million to go, the center’s organizing committee plans to turn the building, complete with an IMAX theater, into an elaborate high-tech science museum for children to acquaint themselves with science.

“This will be a place for children to explore the wonders of science by what they can feel, what they can smell and what they can see,” fund-raising campaign chairman Vince Konty said to the nearly 400 guests who paid $65 to $1,500 to participate in the demolition party, aptly called “Bash to the Future.”

The center’s site is on Main Street, next to the Santa Ana Freeway.

Its futuristic design, done by a Miami-based firm that often contracts with the Walt Disney Co., is meant to catch the eye of passing traffic.

The city of Santa Ana donated the land to the Discovery Science Center’s planning committee nearly 3 1/2 years ago, Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. said.

Recognizing Santa Ana’s central location in the county, the city saw this as an excellent opportunity to bring more people into the community.

“Education is something that has become more important for the future,” Pulido said.

“We will be giving kids throughout Orange County an opportunity they might never have had.”

The center will be among 250 such facilities in the United States, in cities as small as Lubbock, Texas, and as large as San Diego.

Kim Mosley, an engineer with Southern California Edison, said the center is a necessary addition to Orange County’s landscape.

“We have too many entertainment centers and not enough science centers,” said Mosley, who is on the center’s Program and Exhibits Committee.

“As we move on to the next century, we need to . . . make sure we provide the opportunity and programs that will encourage our children to expand themselves and realize that there is much more to life than the Power Rangers.”