Friday
morning marked the official opening of a newly renovated Sugarlands Visitors Center
in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
This $200,000 project was funded by
two of the park’s support organizations, with park personnel providing
much of the labor.
The Great Smoky Mountains Association and Friends of the Smokies each contributed $100,000 for the project, and leaders of those groups helped
Superintendent Dale Ditmanson assisted with the scissors at the opening.
Speaking before the ribbon-cutting, Ditmanson said Sugarlands was
projected to accommodate about 500 people a day when it was originally
designed but that on Easter alone about 6,000 people visited. On an
annual basis more than 800,000 people come through the center to get
“information and orientation” on the park, Ditmanson said.
Included in the renovations are an updated and redesigned lobby with a
reception desk that faces the two doors and has a decorative stone wall.
There is also a new media center with video about the environment and
activities within the park.
In addition, there is a new floor, lighting and an improved entryway
to the park museum, which Schroer said was so hidden by subpar design
that for years some visitors did not even know it was there.
Sugarlands opened in 1966 and is named for the region in which it
sits, an area that was home to a multitude of sugar maple trees when it
was homesteaded in the early 1800s.
Various energy-saving features have also been factored into the
renovation, Ditmanson said, including a new roof, LED lighting and
reactivation of an array of solar panels powering the adjacent comfort
station.
Schroer said construction on the building began in January and was
mostly performed from 2-11 p.m. so that the center never missed a day of
operation.
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