The Soldotna Chamber of Commerce is working on a preliminary design for a new Visitors Center on the “Davis Block property”.
Chamber Board President Steve Manley…
Manley: “It’ll be a two story building at about 10,000 square feet and it will be adjacent to Soldotna Creek Park with access to the park level on the top floor. And then the first floor will be an entry from the parking lot with some office space and then a stairway up to the second level that’s at the park level with exhibit space for the Visitors Center.”
He estimated this new design has three times as much space for Visitors Center exhibits compared to the present one.
When discussions of the new facility began there were ideas of making it a convention center too, but Manley says that has changed…
Manley: “Part of the issue there is you need a lot of space for that kind of thing and a lot of space takes a lot of money to build and in this environment, scaling back kind of makes sense and then if we build it to where it can maybe be expanded at some point later down the road when a full-on convention center makes sense then that’s the approach that we’re going to take to the design.”
He says there is a large meeting room incorporated into the preliminary design.
The Chamber is in the process of creating a working group of select local individuals to begin looking for stakeholders and sponsors for the new project.
Last August the Soldotna City Council granted the Chamber a five year window of time to plan a new facility and secure funding for it on that parcel.