HOT SPRINGS, Ark.-
The Ozark Bathhouse could reopen as a museum displaying modern art, the National Park Service says.
The agency says it is negotiating with the Museum of Contemporary Art-Hot Springs to put a museum in the structure.
Richard Gipe, president of the museum group, said the park service had already completed most of the necessary restoration work in the 84-year-old structure, and the Ozark could open by mid-2007.
"All we have to do is hang lights, hang the art and install the security system and we're ready to go," Gipe said.
Gipe said he hopes to display the works of artists from 1900 on in the new museum, and envisioned exhibiting as many as 500 pieces at a time.
Next year marks the 175th anniversary of the establishment of Hot Springs National Reservation, the nation's first public park.
The Ozark Bathhouse was constructed in the mission style with a white stucco exterior, twin towers and a red-tiled roof. Built in 1922, it replaced an original wooden Ozark Bathhouse built on that site in 1880.
The National Park Service, which owns the eight bathhouses along the park's famous Bathhouse Row, began restoring the buildings in the 1980s in hopes of enticing investors to complete the work and reopen the facilities. More than $18 million has been spent in the effort.
So far, only the Fordyce and the Buckstaff are open to the public–the former as a visitors center and the latter as a private bathhouse.
A business group headed by Don Harper and Hot Springs architects Anthony Taylor and Bob Kempkes are working with the National Park Service to reopen the Quapaw and Maurice bathhouses as traditional spas, aiming for high-end customers.
