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APPROPRIATION COMMITTEE-2018 ATM Article 22: Appropriate for Visitors Center Funds Requested Funding Source Committee Recommendation $200,000 Free cash $4,375,000 GF debt Approve (8-1) $4,575,000 This article requests the appropriation of $4,575,000 to fund production of construction documents ($200,000), demolition, of the current building, the construction of a new Visitors Center ($4,300,000 including demolition), and the temporary relocation of the Visitors Center to a nearby home during the reconstruction($75,000). The new building would replace the current building at the current location. The current Visitors Center building was constructed more than 50 years ago. It was designed to provide rest rooms and information for tourists coming to commemorate the bicentennial of the Battle of Lexing- ton in 1975. The annual number of visitors has grown by about a factor of two since 1975; approximately 122,000 visitors entered the building in 2017. The building is not fully handicapped accessible, lacks adequate restroom facilities for use by tourists and Minuteman Bikeway users, is inadequate for accommodating the volume of visitors, and lacks the tech- nology on which visitors now depend. When it first opened, the Visitors Center was operated by the Chamber of Commerce. Since 2016, it has been operated and staffed by the Town's Economic Development Office. Sales revenue from the gift shop, $210,182 in FY2017 and $117,233 in the first half of FY2018, is sufficient to cover the Visitors Center's operating costs. In October 2011, a new Visitors Center was added to the Town's five-year capital plan. A programmatic report was produced in 2012, and then revised in 2013. At the 2014 Annual Town Meeting, $220,608 was appropriated for design development. The plan at that time was to renovate or rebuild the existing Visitors Center building to include space for visitor education, tour groups, a self-service kiosk, counter space for assisting visitors, a veterans' display with visual connection to exterior memorials, retail space, food vending area,new rest rooms, and office space as well as community meeting space. Mills Whitaker Architects LLC was hired and guided the process further. In view of the condition of the present building, of the new programmatic needs, and of conceptual plans provided by Mills Whitaker in 2015, stakeholders and the Selectmen decided to pursue construction of a new building rather than reno- vation. An article for the construction of a new Visitors Center was included in the 2016 Annual Town Meeting Warrant but was indefinitely postponed. In June 2016, Mills Whitaker provided to the Selectmen a re- vised estimate of the sum of design and construction costs for a new building of$4,063,675. In view of the high cost,the Selectmen declined a request by the Tourism Committee to include an article in the war- rant for the 2017 Annual Town Meeting seeking an appropriation for 25% design funding. The Tourism Committee then placed a citizen article on that warrant. That article, Article 18, seeking appropriation of $21,000 to add to the $130,000 remaining from prior appropriations for additional schematic design funds, was approved. The resulting plan, made available via a report presented to the Permanent Building Committee on September 4, 2017, was Mills Whitaker's attempt to address the shortcomings of the prior design. In October 2017, at Special Town Meeting 2017-3, $150,000 was appropriated under Article 3 to com- plete the design development of the Mills Whitaker concept. Based on a review of programmatic goals and feedback obtained through a series of meetings among the Tourism and Permanent Building Commit- tees, staff, and community stakeholders, this review resulted in a concept for a building smaller than that originally proposed but one that is larger than the current building. The additional space would provide 45