OUR TURN: The time has come for a new Marble Falls visitor center

Marble Falls has needed a new visitors center for some time. An initiative led by the Marble Falls/Lake LBJ Chamber of Commerce to build a new one is quickly picking up steam.

That’s encouraging.

During the last few weeks, Executive Director Christian Fletcher has been speaking to the City Council, civic groups and others about developing plans for the visitors center of the future.

Though the idea is not new, support for a new center has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since Mayor George Russell called for a citywide meeting at Lakeside Pavilion just after the new year to discuss partnerships and plans to move Marble Falls ahead.

Attendees discussed and prioritized projects they feel will increase Marble Falls’ visibility as a great place to visit and to live. A regional sports complex is one of the projects and the visitors center is another.

Plenty has already been said about the regional sports complex, but the visitors center is also important.

An effective visitors center should be a welcome sign to travelers and prospective inhabitants; it should be easily accessible to traffic, comfortable with the proper amenities and filled with information that is at one’s fingertips about everything there is to know concerning the city and its environs.

The current visitors center has outgrown its usefulness. The 1,200-square-foot train depot, which was moved to its present location at 801 U.S. 281 in 1977, is a quaint reminder of Marble Falls’ rustic past, but the city has moved beyond all that.

Today, the city is the bustling gateway to the Highland Lakes, an economic hub of Central Texas and located at the crossroads of several important thoroughfares. Indeed, there are 30,000 cars that daily pass through Marble Falls as they motor up and down 281. Each one represents a potential customer, hotel lodger, vacationer, renter or resident.

A good visitors center catches the eye and encourages travelers to make a stop.

But the current center has no direct access to 281, making it hard to get to; there is not enough parking; and only 400 square feet are open to the public. It is also hard to recognize as a visitors center; it just doesn’t look like one.

The visitors center also will be built by visitors, for the most part. Most of the money to construct the center could come from the city’s hotel-motel tax occupancy fund.

If it comes to fruition, its successor will better reflect Marble Falls’ status as a growing commercial nexus, as a way station for vacationers and as a home to a burgeoning health-care industry with the pending arrival of the new Scott & White Healthcare hospital.

Though plans are embryonic and details few, the current strategy calls for a new and more accessible center to be located just northeast of the 281 bridge. This center will be one of the first sights to greet motorists as cars come over the bridge. It also will have ample parking with enough room for buses and restrooms.

Designs are being drawn up and negotiations are under way for access to a triangular parcel of land. Construction of a replacement bridge over the river may have some impact on the center’s development or access to it, but this will only be temporary.

The Chamber is leading the charge on this project, with support from the city and other groups. That makes sense, since the Chamber operates the current center.

At the same time, the public should not hesitate to offer their suggestions for the center to Fletcher and other Chamber members.

After all, the center will be the doorway to the Marble Falls community, and the community should have some input on the project.