Florida’s Everglades will get a shiny new visitor center

The famous Everglades of Florida will see new infrastructure upgrades as the US National Park Service slowly clears a backlog of needed construction.

Officials announced on Tuesday that a company has been selected to enhance utilities and construct a brand-new two-story visitor center at Everglades National Park. The contract is valued at $47 million.

The Tutor Perini Corporation announced that its subsidiary, Perini Management Services, Inc., was awarded the contract by the National Park Service. In its release, the company included a schematic drawing of its vision for the new visitor center. The drawing shows a modern building with broad open-air spaces and large balconies sporting solar panels on the roof. The facility will also be equipped with a boat dock to welcome visitors arriving by watercraft.

“This design-bid-build contract includes construction of the new two-story visitor center, a one-story remote concessions and storage building, underground utilities, and major site improvements,” the company said. “Dredging of the Chokoloskee Bay and replacing existing floating docks with a new floating dock system with accessible ramps is also part of the scope of the project.”

In a nod to concerns over flooding and sea level rise, Perini added that it has plans to build roads and parking lots to higher elevations to ensure that visitors’ vehicles will be kept well above the high-tide mark.

Construction of the new Everglades National Park Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center is expected to commence in October and last until August 2025.

For years, the National Park Service has struggled to tackle a backlog of needed infrastructure improvements and facility replacements in the face of a record number of visitors and limited budgetary resources.

Managing a rush of tourists flocking to national parks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven particularly challenging for the service. For example, officials at Yellowstone National Park recently announced that more than 846,000 tourists visited the park in August 2023, an increase of 45 percent compared to August 2022.

Now, NPS seems to be making slow but steady progress following new spending appropriations by Congress.

On Wednesday, NPS announced it awarded contracts worth $3.3 million for projects to improve five Civil War battlefields, including the famous Gettysburg battle site. The service is also improving roads and trails associated with the historic Battle of Chancellorsville.

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