After a four-year wait, construction starts on $6.5 million Green Bay visitors center west of Lambeau Field

ASHWAUBENON - Discover Green Bay started construction Tuesday morning on a regional visitors center building first proposed almost four years ago.

Gov. Tony Evers joined regional community leaders to start work on the $6.5 million center.

The building will give the region's tourism marketing agency a long-desired focal point for visitors off Lombardi Avenue between Cabela's and the TitletownFlats and U.S. Venture Center buildings. The 12,500-square-foot building will include promotional spaces, informational displays, an outdoor plaza for events, training spaces, and staff office space.

Discover Green Bay has been without a permanent home since part of the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena roof collapsed during an April 2018 blizzard. The new visitors center will provide it a permanent home and a place to "tell our story," said Cameron Teske, Discover Green Bay's vice president of visitor experience.

The idea of a visitors center has gained momentum in the last decade, but has been talked about among community leaders for close to 50 years, said Brad Toll, president and CEO of Discover Green Bay. The tourism marketing agency noted at least a dozen businesses, trade unions, foundations and community organizations had contributed $100,000 each to the project.

"Today, we're here and ready to get this project moving," Toll said. "You've all made a difference in this. you've made this community's first visitors center a reality."

Construction is expected to wrap up in time for Discover Green Bay to welcome Green Bay Packers fans to training camp in July 2023. Teske said the visitors center will not be the stereotypical cramped room full of brochures straight out of the 1970s, but a modern, multipurpose space with a role to play in helping the region's business community.

Why is a visitors center important?

The visitors center will be located between Interstate 41 and Lambeau Field, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region each year.

Discover Green Bay said the location offers a chance to engage visitors and direct them to other places to explore while they're here, such as museums and the N.E.W. Zoo. The goal is to "increase the spend" by visitors already here or to show them there is more than enough to do in and around the Green Bay area to plan a return visit.

Tourism has shown signs of recovery from 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic halted travel that fuels much of the state's $22 billion tourism industry. In Brown County, tourism related businesses largely recovered in 2021, seeing about 5.5 million visitors spend more than $630 million in the region.

That's about 88% of the region's prior tourism peak in 2019.

The expectation is that engaging people in the community's story and sharing information about other activities in the area can bolster the tourism industry's impact both in Brown County and in northeast Wisconsin.

Brandon Yellowbird Stevens, vice chair of the Oneida Nation, said tourism is a major driver of economic impact for the Oneida community. He said the visitors center, which the tribe helped fund, will be a "showpiece" for the region and a chance to share tribe's culture and history in northeast Wisconsin with a larger audience.

How will this help Green Bay's economic development?

Discover Green Bay plans to work with the Greater Green Bay Chamber and major businesses in the region to highlight key industries in the region like paper, logistics, and health care.

Toll also said the visitors center can serve as a tool to help with workforce recruitment. For example, he said, a business might be able to meet candidates at the center and talk about the region's attractions and quality of life.

"We look forward to supporting your efforts at economic development and recruitment," Toll said.

Why did it take four years to get done?

The short answer: Money and politics.

Discover Green Bay announced the visitors center in September 2018, backed by a lead gift from the Oneida Nation and a major gift from the WPS Foundation.

In all, Discover Green Bay raised $4.5 million through contributions from local businesses and foundations, but the plan stalled as Discover Green Bay sought state dollars to close the $2 million gap.

Local officials argued that state funding for the project would be comparable the state's funding for visitor resources at rest areas at the southern and western state lines.

The idea had support among the region's state legislators, but repeatedly failed to gain adequate support in Madison. Gov. Tony Evers included funding for the visitors center in the 2019 budget, but it was removed by Assembly Republicans. In August 2019, area Democrats in the Assembly and Senate introduced a bill to directly provide funding, but it lacked support from Republican leadership. The state Assembly in February 2020 approved a bill to loan Discover Green Bay the money, but that measure stalled in the state Senate.

The money was finally made available in February, when Evers awarded the visitors center a $2.5 million Tourism Capital Investment Grant. The money came from a pool of $21.9 million in American Reinvestment Plan Act funding that the governor earmarked for local governments and tourism agencies to help Wisconsin's $22 billion  tourism sector recover from the pandemic.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier. 

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Construction begins on $6.5 million Green Bay visitors center near Lambeau Field