The Riverside Zoo, Don Steen's Wildlife World, and the newly formed Children University Museum announced today a partnership designed to create a year round educational and regional attraction to be named the Riverside Discovery Center. A new building, including a theater and two classrooms, will be constructed at the entrance of the zoo to house the new Discovery Center. Riverside Zoological Society President Tony Kaufman says the plan has been developing over a year and a half and allows the three entities, all facing budget constraints, to combine resources and have a broader revenue base.

The zoo, facing a 50% cut in funding by the city of Scottsbluff to $350,000 in fiscal 2011, had a year to come up with a plan to stay financially feasible. Kaufman says by being part of the new Discovery Center, the zoo will no longer be operated and owned by the city, which will make easier for the new organization to gain annual operating grants. The Discovery Center is still proposing a budget that calls for over $600,000 in public government support, which would include the Scottsbluff contribution as well as planned financial support from the cities of Gering and Terrytown and Scotts Bluff County.

The new Discovery center would be more of an inter-active attraction, with exhibits from children's museums rotated in and out of the children's museum as well from Wildlife World's Gering location. The timeline for the new Discovery Center is for groundbreaking to take place in the spring of next year and the new building to be complete by December, 2010.