Park Service: Visitor Center Project Costs, Size, and Functions Vary Widely
Published: 2001-06-27T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Visitor centers at the national parks are among the most important facilities run by the National Park Service. As existing visitor centers age and new parks are created, renovated or new facilities are needed. This report discusses (1) the number, the status, and the reasons for Park Service visitor center projects; (2) whether the projects involve new construction or the renovation of existing buildings; (3) whether these projects were designated priorities by the Park Service or by Congress; (4) the costs and functions of the projects; and (5) the funding sources for the projects.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: GAO found that from 1996 through 2005, the Park Service has completed or planned 80 projects to renovate or build new visitor centers. The renovations and new construction are intended to replace aging facilities and exhibits, to provide more space, and to handle rising numbers of visitors. Of the 80 projects, 53 were a priority of the Park Service and 27 were a priority of Congress. The Park Service estimates that the total cost of the 80 projects will be $542 million. The visitor center projects are funded primarily by the Park Service's appropriated funds. Other funding sources include private partnerships and fee demonstrations.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The National Park Service manages and maintains thousands of facilities to provide nearly 300 million visitors a year a safe and enjoyable visit to the nation’s parks and monuments. One of the most important of these facilities is the visitor center, which serves as a focal point for visitors to learn about a park and offers a variety of services, including such basic services as orientation and information, exhibits and interpretation, publication sales, and restrooms. Most of the Park Service’s 384 parks have a visitor center, but as existing visitor center buildings age and new parks are added to the system, new or renovated visitor centers are needed. Some of the existing visitor centers occupy buildings that were constructed in the early part of the century and were adapted to provide visitor services. Many other visitor centers were built as the Park Service expanded and added parks during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. This expansion, combined with budget tightening of the 1980s and early 1990s, resulted in few visitor centers being built over the last 20 years. In the 1990s, however, the Park Service began to plan for an increase in the number of visitor center projects.
Concerned that some of the new visitor center projects included new services, such as transportation facilities, and also appeared more costly than the projects that were built in the past, you asked us to provide detailed information, such as costs and functions, on Park Service visitor center projects that have been built or that are being planned to be built. Specifically, you asked us to determine (1) the number, status, and reasons for Park Service visitor center projects; whether these projects involved new construction or renovation of existing facilities; and whether these projects were identified as priorities by the park service or by the Congress; (2) the costs of the visitor center projects and the functions included in those projects; and (3) the sources of funding for the projects.
To answer the three objectives, we identified parks with projects that include visitor centers that had completion dates between fiscal years 1996 through 2005, and sent a questionnaire to each because the Park Service does not gather detailed data on visitor center projects that have been built or those that are expected to be built. The response rate was 100 percent. We collected data on visitor center projects to capture all the functions that are included in such projects and because the Park Service maintains funding and cost data for construction projects, not buildings. It is important to note that visitor center projects do not necessarily include only the construction of a visitor center building, but may also include related functions, such as parking lots for the visitor center, the rehabilitation of land, and transportation facilities. We used fiscal year 1996 as the starting point for our analysis because the Park Service’s financial and regional reorganizations prior to 1996 made data difficult to obtain and would have required a lengthy, costly effort to gather complete data. We used fiscal year 2005 as our cutoff point for data collection because beyond that year, projects are less certain and the data are more subject to change. In order to report the cost and funding information in a consistent manner, we asked the Park Service to provide us with the information in constant fiscal year 2000 dollars. Some of the visitor center project data are based on self-reported information and are subject to limitations. We took various steps as described in the scope and methodology to establish the overall validity of the cost data. A detailed description of our scope and methodology is in appendix I.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Conserving the nation’s natural and cultural resources and ensuring visitor enjoyment of these resources has been the primary mission of the National Park Service since its inception in 1916. The Park Service has long provided facilities for visitor use, but over time, the way that the Park Service has provided services has changed. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Park Service—building on the legacy of the railroad companies, who had built the great lodges in western natural parks such as Yellowstone in Wyoming, Glacier in Montana, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona—built basic infrastructure such as roads, wayside stops, administrative offices, campgrounds, and other basic visitor facilities, which were located in different buildings typically arranged as a village. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Park Service centralized visitor services and adopted modern architecture with large, open spaces that allowed the increasing numbers of visitors to circulate more easily. The Park Service built many visitor centers in preparation for its 50th anniversary in 1966 and built another set of visitor centers in preparation for 1976, the nation’s bicentennial year. The centers built during this time are referred to either as Mission 66 buildings or Bicentennial buildings. Figures 1 and 2 show examples of each.
The building commonly thought of as a “visitor center” was created by the Park Service in the mid-1950s. Through a program called Mission 66, the Park Service invested over $600 million in park infrastructure in an effort to handle increasing numbers of visitors. In addition to roads, bridges, and offices, the program resulted in the construction of 111 visitor centers. These visitor centers, for the first time, grouped park interpretive presentations, auditoriums, administrative offices, restrooms, and various other services into a single building. According to the Park Service, the visitor center quickly became one of the most important facilities for helping the public see and enjoy a park, and continues today to be the center of park planning and building.
In fiscal year 2001, the Park Service received about $160 million for its construction program to renovate and build new facilities, including visitor centers. Other types of facilities included in the construction program are maintenance buildings, warehouses, utilities, and seawalls and other retaining walls. To construct a major project, such as a visitor center, about 5 to 6 years before construction begins, a park generally identifies the project scope, or needs, and a cost estimate. If the project is to receive appropriated funds, the project is ranked, along with other projects, by a service-wide assessment team and is placed on a 5-year construction program list, which serves as the basis for the Park Service’s annual budget proposals that are reviewed by the Congress. If the project is not to be funded through the annual appropriations process, it receives funds according to the program under which it is being built. For example, projects built with fee demonstration funds will receive funds from regional fee demonstration accounts.
Design (including pre-design activities) for all construction projects generally begins 3 years prior to construction and includes the development of increasingly detailed designs and increasingly specific cost estimates for the project. The process includes analysis of different alternatives for the project and the “life-cycle” cost of the alternatives, or the costs of each alternative over its useful life. The Park Service generally contracts with an architecture and engineering firm to complete construction documents for a project, and when these documents are complete, the Park Service contracts for construction with qualified private construction companies. During construction, the Park Service typically contracts for a firm to inspect the construction site and the construction progress.
section_title: Eighty Visitor Center Projects Are Completed, Under Construction, or Planned
paragraphs: For the 10-year period from fiscal years 1996 through 2005, the Park Service estimates that it has 80 projects that involve construction, renovation, or remodeling of visitor centers. Of these 80 projects, 16 have already been completed, 15 are under construction, and 49 are being planned. The projects under construction and planned may be delayed or cancelled because of funding and scheduling uncertainties. Park officials gave several reasons for the 80 visitor center projects, including the need to replace obsolete or deficient facilities or exhibits, increase space, and address increasing visitation. Of the 80 projects, 43 involve the construction of a new visitor center building, while 37 others require the renovation of an existing building. The Park Service identified 53 priority construction projects, and the Congress identified an additional 27 projects as priority projects.
subsections: section_title: Nearly Two-Thirds of the Visitor Center Projects Are in the Planning Phase
paragraphs: The Park Service has completed or started over one-third of the 80 visitor center projects, and the remaining two-thirds are being planned and construction is expected to be completed in the next 4 years. Figure 3 shows the status of the 80 visitor center projects.
Of the 80 visitor center projects, 16 have been completed and 15 are still under construction. The remaining 49 visitor center projects, which were being planned as of April 2001, are expected to be completed by fiscal year 2005. Park projects that are being planned are in various stages of planning, ranging from those that are being conceptualized to those for which construction documents are being developed. For example, the concept for the visitor center project at Denali National Park in Alaska has been selected and the project is in the process of being designed. On the other hand, Badlands National Park in South Dakota has construction documents for its visitor center project and is awaiting a construction contract.
Of the 49 projects being planned, some are further along in the planning process than others, and thus have more precise cost estimates. The Park Service develops project designs and cost estimates at three points in the planning process. Twenty-eight of the 49 planned projects have a Class C estimate, which is the least exact design and cost estimate produced. It is based on the costs of similar buildings already constructed and is produced by the park when a project is first considered and requested. Thirteen of the 49 projects have a class B estimate, which is developed after a period of conceptual planning and development of a more detailed plan of the building. The remaining eight planned projects have a class A estimate, which is the final, most precise planning cost estimate that has been developed from construction documents.
section_title: Major Reasons for Building Visitor Center Projects
paragraphs: Parks identified several reasons why a visitor center project was needed. The major reasons given by park officials for building visitor center projects were to replace obsolete facilities or exhibits, to increase space, to handle increased visitation, to build a park’s first visitor center, or to replace a visitor center that was not at an accessible location.
One major reason that parks said they needed a new or renovated visitor center is that either existing facilities were obsolete, their exhibits were outdated, or both. According to Park Service staff, visitor centers and other facilities are expected to last 40 to 50 years without major renovation or replacement. Before that time, however, certain functions in the building such as restrooms may need to be updated, and as the building ages, the maintenance and operation costs can become more expensive. The Park Service renovates buildings to prolong their lifespan, but at some point, analyzes whether to remodel and continue using the same building or to build a new one. Several parks, including Bryce Canyon in Utah, Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, Zion National Park in Utah, and Grand Canyon National Park, have buildings that have aged and need either extensive renovation or replacement. While buildings may last decades, park exhibits contain information that can become outdated, such as scientific information about natural or cultural resources, or contain items that need special protection, such as artifacts or historical documents. With increasing knowledge and technology, park exhibits can be improved to enhance the visitor experience. For example, both Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in Georgia have renovated their visitor centers in part to upgrade their exhibits. Each of the park’s Civil War era artifacts are now housed in temperature-controlled cases with controlled lighting, both of which required upgraded utilities and connections. Figure 4 shows the addition to the Kennesaw Mountain visitor center.
The parks also identified the need for increased space as another major reason for requesting a new visitor center. Park officials stated that the size of a park’s staff and the number of visitors have increased since many of the visitor centers were built, requiring additional space to accommodate increased numbers of people. In addition, park officials identified the need to increase the space used to store collections or provide exhibits. Existing visitor centers ranged in size from 181 square feet to more than 79,000 square feet. The visitor center at Pinnacles National Monument in California—the visitor center with 181 square feet—shares space with another facility and has no room for exhibits. The new planned visitor center will be 1,500 square feet. In contrast, the current visitor center at Gettysburg has an area of 79,274 square feet, including a building that houses the famous “Cyclorama” painting (a circular painting). According to the park’s superintendent, the current visitor center has no room to house the park’s collection of Civil War items, nor the space to store them under appropriate climatic conditions. The new Gettysburg visitor center being planned will be 118,100 square feet.
A third major reason that parks gave for needing a new or renovated visitor center is increased visitation. For many parks, visitation has increased greatly since the visitor center first opened. Park officials project that visitation to their visitor centers will continue to increase for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the visitor center will be new, that the park is well-located, or that the long-term trend in visitation has been increasing. Of 53 parks that provided complete data, 51 expected visitation at their visitor centers to increase an average of about 25 percent by 2005, with three-quarters of the parks reporting an increase of about 10 to almost 100 percent. For example, Everglades National Park in Florida expects visitation at its new center to increase from 194,000 in 2000 to 243,000 visitors in 2005.
Finally, several parks requested a new visitor center because they either had no visitor center or the existing center location was determined to have a negative effect on natural or cultural resources or was situated in a location that was not accessible to visitors. For example, Grand Portage National Monument in Minnesota—which was created in 1951—has never had a visitor center and instead has offered visitor services out of its administrative building. On the other hand, the visitor center for Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site in Texas is currently located in leased facilities eight miles from the park. According to the park’s superintendent, the center is difficult to find and is closed on weekends— because of the hours of the building in which it leases space—the time when most visitors come to the park. The new visitor center, which will be located near the park entrance, will be more accessible and convenient for the park visitors.
section_title: Projects Are Split Between New Buildings and Renovations of Existing Buildings
paragraphs: Of the 80 visitor center projects to be completed by fiscal year 2005, 43 (54 percent) involve construction of a new building and 37 (46 percent) require the renovation of an existing visitor center or building. Individual parks reach the decision to construct a new building or to renovate an existing building during the initial development of the scope of the visitor center project. As park officials plan a visitor center project, they analyze the value of each alternative—a process called a value analysis—before making the decision whether to renovate an existing visitor center or other building or construct a new building. Park officials consider factors, such as the existing building’s age and condition, visitation, maintenance costs over the life of the alternative buildings, and historic significance. The parks also consider whether the visitor center needs to be moved away from a flood plain or the key natural or historic features of the park to prevent damage. For example, the project at Ulysses S. Grant Historical Site in Missouri will build a new permanent visitor center to replace the temporary facilities that are already located in a historic barn in a flood plain. On the other hand, Bryce Canyon decided to renovate its existing visitor center building because there was no other location in the park where a visitor center could be built without further endangering its protected prairie dog population—a valued resource. Figure 5 shows the renovation of the Bryce Canyon National Park visitor center in December 2000, as it was under construction.
In special cases, when a building has historic significance, the Park Service—because of its conservation mission and mandate not to impair park resources—must consider not only whether the building should be kept and maintained, but also how to rehabilitate and restore it. For example, the visitor center at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, and one of three visitor centers at Rocky Mountain National Park, in Colorado, have both been designated National Historic Landmarks because of their architectural significance and association with the Mission 66 period. These visitor centers will be renovated to restore and maintain the buildings’ original conditions, as well as to improve their usefulness as visitor centers.
section_title: Visitor Center Projects Are Identified by Both the Park Service and the Congress
paragraphs: In addition to projects that the Park Service identifies, the Congress can also identify—through legislation or through the appropriations process— projects for construction. Of the 80 visitor center projects, the Park Service requested 53 projects, or 66 percent, while the Congress concurred with these projects and requested an additional 27 projects, or 34 percent. In its annual budget request, the Park Service provides the Congress with a list of proposed construction projects for the upcoming fiscal year. As part of its review of the budget, the Congress may make revisions or additions to this list on the basis of its priorities. Congressional committees, and in some cases individual members, identify projects for construction that are not listed in the annual budget request. In some cases, projects identified by Congress are on the Park Service’s 5-year list of projects to build, but they may not have been included in a particular fiscal year budget request. Park Service officials said that they work with congressional committees and members when the projects are added to the budget to get them ready for planning and construction. For example, in 1996, the Congress passed legislation authorizing the construction of a visitor center to interpret the battle of Corinth in Tennessee and other regional Civil War actions; since that time the Park Service has been planning the facility.
section_title: The 80 Visitor Center Projects Are Multifunctional and Cost an Estimated $542 Million
paragraphs: The National Park Service estimates that a total of $542 million will be needed for the 80 visitor center projects. The cost of the individual visitor center projects varies widely, ranging from $500,000 to $39 million. In general, a new building with an increased number of functions and additional square footage costs more than a renovated building with fewer functions and less area. For example, the visitor center project at Great Smoky Mountains National Park cost $500,000 and involved the renovation of the existing visitor center building and the addition of an auditorium, which increased the total size of the building by 3,500 square feet to a total of 13,000 square feet. In contrast, the new 118,100 square foot visitor center building planned for Gettysburg National Military Park will contain the five basic functions and many others for an estimated cost of $39 million. The additional functions being planned for this private-park partnership project include a museum, an area for the historic cyclorama painting, restoration of the painting, the removal of the existing visitor center, and rehabilitation of the land where the existing visitor center stands. The number and type of functions and the size of the buildings varies widely because the functions and size of visitor center projects not only depend on the needs of the individual parks, but also the Park Service has no guidelines for what each visitor center project should include. Recognizing the need for such guidelines, the Park Service has contracted with two architecture and engineering firms to develop functions and square footage guidelines for key facilities including visitor centers. The Park Service plans to use these in its development and review of visitor center projects.
subsections: section_title: Visitor Center Project Costs Range from $500,000 to an Estimated $39 Million
paragraphs: As of April 2001, the average cost to build a visitor center project was $6.7 million, with the costs ranging from $500,000 to $39 million. Table 1 shows the range of costs of the 80 visitor center projects, the number and percentage of visitor center projects by cost range, and the share of total costs represented by each cost range.
When complete, 28 visitor center projects, or about 35 percent of the total projects, will likely cost less than $3 million each. For example, the visitor center at Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, which is estimated to cost $1.4 million to build, includes the five basic functions and offers an auditorium, ticket and permit area, and a parking lot. Combined, these 28 projects are expected to cost an estimated $53 million, or about 10 percent of the estimated costs for all 80 projects.
On the other hand, 15 visitor center projects, which represent about 19 percent of the total projects, are estimated to cost $266 million, or 49 percent of the estimated costs for all 80 visitor center projects. Each of these projects is estimated to cost more than $10 million. They include projects such as the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in New York, which will rehabilitate part of the library and build a conference center and a Park Service visitor center in cooperation with the National Archives for an estimated cost of $18 million, and Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Kansas, which will build a new visitor center for an estimated $11.5 million. Other planned projects are estimated to cost more than $20 million each, including Gettysburg and Independence. Some projects that have already been completed or almost completed for more than $10 million include the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Fort Sumter National Monument, which is in South Carolina. Appendix III lists the total project costs for each project with a visitor center.
section_title: Variation in Project Costs Depends on Project Type, Functions Included, and Size
paragraphs: Visitor center project costs vary depending on whether the projects require new construction or renovation of existing visitor centers, the number and type of functions included in the visitor center building, and the size of the building. Almost half of the 80 visitor center projects involve renovation while the remainder involve the construction of new visitor center buildings, which are generally more expensive. Table 2 compares the average costs of renovation and new construction and the cost ranges for each.
On average, projects that involve new construction cost twice as much as projects that involve renovation. According to Park Service officials, construction of new buildings involves more work, including preparing the building site and foundation, hooking up utilities, and construction. Renovations may not involve as much work and are generally less expensive. Some renovations can be costly, however, particularly if they involve historical rehabilitation of a building or if they involve a large building with multiple functions. Of the 80 projects, at least 6 involve rehabilitation of historic buildings or adaptation of buildings for use as visitor centers. For example, the visitor center at Dinosaur National Monument has been designated a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance and association with the Mission 66 period. The project, which will cost an estimated $7.7 million, will correct foundation weaknesses to protect the visitor center from collapsing and will create a larger area inside when the museum collections are moved to a new curatorial building. Another project, which involves restoration of the Kelso Depot at Mojave National Preserve in California, will cost $6 million to preserve one of two remaining train stations built in the 1920s for use as a visitor center.
The cost of a visitor center project also varies according to the number and type of functions each includes. The number and types of functions a visitor center project has depends on the individual needs of a park, and can include parking lots, transportation facilities, landscaping, headquarters space, maintenance space, and rehabilitation of areas where existing visitor centers are demolished. With few exceptions, the 80 visitor center projects included the five basic functions of a visitor center— information, exhibits, publication sales, restrooms, and administrative space for center personnel. In addition, several parks identified a number of additional functions, such as auditoriums, curatorial areas, and transportation facilities, to be included in visitor center projects that had a direct bearing on the cost of the projects. Table 3 shows the average number of functions for the 80 visitor center projects by cost range. The five basic functions are not included, as nearly all visitor center projects contain them.
The 14 visitor center projects with cost projections below $2 million have an average of 2 additional functions over the 5 basic functions, whereas the 15 visitor center projects with cost projections above $10 million average 6 additional functions or triple the number of additional functions included in the projects costing less than $2 million.
The type of function included in the project also affects a project’s costs. Several parks have included transportation facilities in their projects, which can be costly. For example, the Grand Canyon and Zion national parks each have a form of bus service with shuttle stops, buses, and related maintenance buildings. At Zion National Park, the new visitor center project cost about $24 million, and includes the construction of the visitor center, a bus maintenance center, shuttle stops, and the purchase of over 30 buses for the park’s new shuttle system. Figure 6 shows several different parts of the new visitor center project, including a large outdoor exhibit area that can accommodate large number of visitors during peak season.
Fort Sumter National Monument, which is located on an island, required the construction of a unique transportation system—a boat dock from which visitors will travel to the site. The visitor center is currently being built on a dock that will provide boat rides to the site. Figure 7 shows the frame of the visitor center in November 2000, as well as the dock, all of which are expected be completed in August 2001.
Depending on a park’s needs, parks have also added other functions, including headquarters space; space for the concessioners operating services in the parks, such as hotels, guided tours, gift shops, or restaurants; curatorial space; and museum space. For example, the Gettysburg project will house its Civil War collection in a new visitor center museum. Appendix II presents detail information on the 80 visitor center projects and the functions included in them.
Finally, the size of the visitor center, measured by the square feet contained in the visitor center building, influences the total cost of the visitor center project. Table 4 shows the average square footage of the visitor center buildings by the cost ranges of the projects.
On average, the visitor center projects in the higher cost ranges have much larger buildings. The 15 most costly projects have buildings with an average area of 28,228 square feet, while the 14 least costly projects average 6,747 square feet.
The variation in visitor center project functions and size is partially due to the fact that the Park Service has not developed specific guidelines for what should be included in a visitor center project. Under the current Park Service policy on park facilities, visitor center projects may be constructed when necessary to provide visitor information and interpretive services. The policy generally describes what may be included in a visitor center, such as information services, sale of educational materials, museums, museum collections storage, exhibits, and other programs and spaces to create a quality visitor experience. The determination of the functions and size for a particular visitor center project is made initially by the park superintendent and is then subsequently reviewed and analyzed by the appropriate regional office and the construction program. Since 1996, the Park Service has also relied on an advisory board called the Development Advisory Board to review all construction projects over $500,000. Of the 80 projects, the Board has reviewed 37 and needs to review 30 projects. The remaining 13 projects predated the review process. The board reviews proposed project plans and cost estimates for projects, hears presentations from the park’s employees, and either forwards the project for Director approval or requests additional analyses. Projects that require additional analyses are sent back to the parks for revisions and additional work before returning to the board for review.
To provide specific guidelines for the Development Advisory Board and the parks, the Park Service contracted with two architectural and engineering firms to develop construction planning criteria and preliminary cost guidance for Park Service facilities, including functions, square footage, and cost. One of the contractors is expected to provide guidelines for maintenance facilities to the Park Service in August 2001 and will continue working on guidelines for the other facilities, including visitor centers, in the upcoming year. When the guidelines are complete, the Park Service plans to have park staff use them to develop the scope of projects and the initial cost estimates, and plans to provide the guidelines to the Development Advisory Board for use in its future review of projects.
section_title: Funding for Visitor Center Projects Include Park Service Appropriations, Private Funds, Fee Demonstration Funds, and Other Sources
paragraphs: The Park Service receives appropriations for planning, construction, and repair and rehabilitation, all of which can be used in the construction or renovation of visitor center projects. In addition, the Park Service has successfully generated supplemental funding from other sources, such as private partnerships, fee demonstration funds, federal highway funds, various other government entities, and others. Figure 8 shows the total funding for the 80 visitor center projects that has been or will be provided by source.
Park Service funds represent the largest funding source for the 80 visitor center projects, contributing an estimated $322 million of the total estimated cost of $542 million. Private partnerships are the second largest source of funding for the visitor center projects, providing $97 million for visitor center projects. The Park Service can receive donations—including buildings—from private individuals or groups. Many parks have “Friends” groups or natural history associations that are interested in supporting the park by raising funds and developing important projects. After private partnerships, the third largest source of funds for visitor center projects is estimated to be fee demonstration funds, which are raised through additional or new fees charged by individual parks. For example, a park can adjust its entrance fees based on use or charge additional fees during peak seasons. Of the funds collected, the park can keep 80 percent, and the remaining 20 percent is put into a pool for which other parks can compete. Some parks received authority to raise fee demonstration funds in fiscal year 1996 and can spend these funds through 2005. The Park Service estimates that $48 million, or 9 percent, of the total funding for the 80 visitor center projects will be fee demonstration funds.
Additional funding for visitor center projects comes from a number of different sources. Road construction funds from the Federal Highway Administration’s Federal Lands Highway Program provide an estimated $35 million, or 6 percent, of the total project funding. The highway program provides discretionary funding that can be used for, among other things, visitor center projects located on major roads. For example, funding for the visitor center project at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, which will cost $2.1 million, was provided from highway funds. Finally, funding for visitor center projects also comes from other federal agencies, state governments, concession owners, and Indian tribes. In total, other funding sources provide an estimated $40 million, or 7 percent, of funding for the 80 projects. For example, the largest single source of funding for the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt project—$8.2 million—will come from the National Archives for the library portion of the project.
Alternative sources of funding—such as private partnership funds, fee demonstration funds, or highway funds—can significantly benefit some projects, allowing them to be constructed perhaps several years before they would have received Park Service construction appropriations. Some projects receive small amounts of these alternative sources of funding, while other projects receive almost their entire funding from alternative sources. For example, Kennesaw Mountain received $520,000 for its renovation from its Friends group and the Kennesaw Mountain Historical Association, which represented about 25 percent of its total costs. On the other hand, the new visitor center project at the Grand Canyon used over $16 million, or 68 percent of its total construction costs, in fee demonstration funds raised by the park.
section_title: Observations
paragraphs: The Park Service is experiencing increased activity in building projects that include visitor centers, and faces the challenge of constructing buildings that simultaneously serve the purposes of the individual parks and are built efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. The National Park Service has made efforts—through the establishment of the Development Advisory Board and the development of facility guidelines—to move the agency toward achieving these goals. The variation in the costs, size, and functions of projects that include visitor centers supports the Park Service’s efforts.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided the Department of the Interior with a copy of our draft report for review and comment.  Overall, Interior said that the report provides useful information that will be beneficial to the Park Service in planning, programming, design and construction of visitor centers and associated facilities. Interior said the report presents information in a “non-interpreted” way, but asserts that some of our data is incorrect and that some relevant information has not been included in the report.
First, Interior believes that some of the data gathered with our survey and used in portions of the report are incorrect.  We disagree.  Our objectives were to provide information on the cost, functions, and funding for visitor center projects.  Because Interior does not maintain a database with this information, it was necessary for us to first identify visitor center projects and then to gather specific information using a questionnaire to answer the study’s specific objectives.  As we pointed out in our scope and methodology, we designed our questionnaire with the Park Service’s input and we discussed the questionnaire in detail with officials from 11 parks. To address potential inconsistencies or misinterpretations in responses from the parks, we followed up, as is our normal practice, with all parks that provided data that appeared to be inconsistent or misinterpreted.  As a further check on the validity of the data, we corroborated the project cost and funding data with regional budget staff.  We believe the data upon which the report is based are accurate.  Other data which we gathered as part of the questionnaire and to which Interior is referring—data on the visitor center building costs—were not used in the report.  We attempted to gather this data because Interior did not maintain the data.  However, in discussing visitor center building costs with the parks and with Interior construction staff, we found that the data were subject to different interpretations and assumptions about what specific costs should be included.  For example, parks used different interpretations on whether or not to include site development costs, which in its comments Interior points out can be a major cost in the overall visitor center project costs. Given that collecting specific data on visitor center building costs was not part of our overall objectives, and that the data are subject to different interpretations and assumptions, the data need to be clarified and studied in more detail as part of a separate review.
Interior also believes that providing costs per square foot of the individual visitor center buildings is more meaningful than providing the overall costs of visitor center projects.  We strongly disagree that information on visitor center building costs is more meaningful than the cost of the projects.  As stated above, our purpose was to discuss the cost, functions, and funding sources for visitor center projects and not just visitor center buildings. The requesters asked that we gather data on overall visitor center projects because the total project costs reflect all costs related to developing and constructing a visitor center, which represent the cost to the taxpayer.  Also, only in this way can the full range of visitor center project functions, including transportation facilities, be addressed. Although Interior states that cost-per-square-foot data is more meaningful than project costs, the Park Service has not developed a database containing this information. Furthermore, Interior asserts that the data could have been easily developed from data already accumulated.  We disagree.  We gathered, as part of our study, data that could be used to calculate the cost per square foot of individual visitor centers.  However, because of various interpretations and the assumptions used in calculating the square foot costs of visitor center buildings, we ultimately decided not to report these data.  We agree that cost-per-square-foot data on visitor center buildings are important and question why the Park Service has not yet developed the data.
Interior notes that trends in visitor center costs and costs per square foot can be identified and that our report could have identified trends but did not do so.  We disagree that trends can be identified.  The trends that Interior says that it has identified are not trends, but are comparisons of average costs at two points in time.  We attempted to develop trends by plotting total and average project costs by the year projects were completed, and as we stated in the report, were unable to discern a trend in costs because of the wide variation in projects.
Finally, Interior asserts that parts of our discussion of its planning, design and construction processes are incomplete or incorrect.  We believe that for the purpose of this study, general background information is needed to interpret the data and that we have provided complete information for this purpose.  We did make technical changes, as appropriate, to address Interior’s specific comments on incorrect information related to these processes.  Interior’s comments are presented in their entirety in appendix V.
We conducted our review from November 2000 through June 2001 in accordance with generally acceptable government auditing standards. We are sending copies of this report to the Honorable Gale A. Norton, Secretary of the Interior; the Director of the National Park Service; and other interested parties. This report will be available on GAO’s home page at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please call me at (202) 512-3841. Key contributors to this report were Fran Featherston, Cliff Fowler, Susan Iott, Chet Janik, and Bill Temmler.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: Our study included all National Park Service visitor center projects that had either been completed, were under construction, or were planned to be completed between fiscal year 1996 and fiscal year 2005 (as identified by January 2001). We selected fiscal year 1996 as a starting point because changes in the Park Service’s accounting and regional organization prior to 1996 made data difficult to obtain. We used fiscal year 2005 as our cutoff because projects that the Park Service is planning to complete beyond that year are less certain than projects that will be completed prior to that year as the projects have not been reviewed or prioritized by the agency. The Park Service’s 5-year construction plan, which extended through fiscal year 2005 at the time we were gathering information, includes the agency’s prioritized construction projects.
First, to answer all three objectives—the number, reasons, costs, functions and sources of funding for the identified projects—we developed a questionnaire. To gather background data and to develop and pretest the questionnaire for our study, we visited or talked to officials at 11 national parks in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. We chose parks that had visitor center projects in various stages of construction and that had a variety of functions. A copy of the questionnaire is included in appendix IV.
Second, to determine the number of visitor centers built, renovated, and planned from fiscal year 1996, we worked with National Park Service officials to develop a current definition of a visitor center project. This was necessary because the Park Service did not have a specific definition of a visitor center project, but rather, has general guidance on what constituted a visitor center. We agreed with the Park Service that a visitor center project (1) must have a staffed facility that provides general information on the park, (2) must include administrative space for visitor center personnel plus four of the basic functions included in the guidance—an information desk, exhibits, publication sales, and restrooms, and (3) can include a number of other functions, including an auditorium, ticket sales and permits, transportation facilities, and other specialized uses, depending on the needs of the individual park. In addition, it was agreed that visitor contact stations that are not staffed by personnel or specialized facilities such as education centers or beach houses, would not be counted as visitor center projects.
Third, using this definition, we reviewed Park Service budget and planning documents and interviewed Park Service construction officials to identify an initial set of visitor center projects. We then sent to each Park Service regional office a list of projects at parks in the respective regions for review. Through this process we identified 106 visitor center projects that were either completed, under construction, or planned to be completed during the period of fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2005.
Fourth, we mailed questionnaires—one for each of 106 visitor center projects—to the 94 parks that had visitor center projects built or planned during our time frames. Some parks had more than one project built or planned. To corroborate that the visitor center projects met our specifications, we requested documentation for each project. One park identified a second project that fell within the study’s time frames and completed a questionnaire for that project, bringing the total number of identified projects to 107. However, 27 of the 107 projects were subsequently dropped from the study because the parks stated these projects did not fit into our universe for several different reasons, including the fact that the bulk of the visitor center project had been completed prior to 1996, the project had been redesigned and the visitor center portion eliminated, or the project would not be completed by 2005. This left 80 projects in the survey. We mailed the questionnaires on January 10, 2001 and obtained completed questionnaire responses for all 80 projects by March 16, 2001.
Finally, to corroborate that we had received consistent funding and cost information for each project, we asked the budget staff from each of the Park Service’s seven regions to ensure that the parks in the region had reported costs and funding data in the same way. Specifically, we asked the regions to ensure that the funds included contingency and supervision costs and that the cost and fund data were in constant fiscal year 2000 dollars. We received corrections for our data through April 2001. Finally, we coordinated our work with the architecture and engineering contractor that the Park Service had hired to develop square footage and function standards for key park facilities, including visitor centers.
We conducted our work from November 2000 through June 2001 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Appendix II: Functions Included in Visitor Center Projects
paragraphs: The following figure shows the functions, in addition to the five basic functions, that are included in the 80 visitor center projects that the Park Service has either completed, has under construction, or is planning to complete between fiscal years 1996 and 2005. The projects are grouped by whether or not they involve new construction or renovation of an existing building, and by the status of the project construction.
section_title: Appendix III: Funding Sources and Total Costs of Park Service Visitor Center Projects
paragraphs: The following table provides details on the funding sources for the 80 visitor center projects that the Park Service has completed, has under construction, or is planning. The projects are grouped by new construction or renovation of an existing building, and by the status of the project construction. We worked with the regional office budget staff to corroborate the funding data provided in the questionnaires and to ensure that funds were reported in constant fiscal year 2000 funds.
section_title: Appendix IV: Copy of Visitor Center Project Questionnaire
section_title: Appendix V: Comments From the Department of the Interior
paragraphs: The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of the Interior’s letter dated July 10, 2001.
subsections: section_title: GAO’s Comments
paragraphs: 1.  We disagree.  Our objectives were to provide information on the cost, functions, and funding for visitor center projects.  Because the Park Service does not maintain a database with this information, it was necessary for us first to identify visitor center projects and then to gather specific information using a questionnaire to answer the study’s specific objectives.  As we pointed out in our scope and methodology, we developed the questionnaire with input from the Park Service and discussed the questionnaire in detail with officials from 11 parks.  To address potential inconsistencies or misinterpretations in responses from the parks, we followed up, as is our normal practice, with all parks that had provided data that appeared to be inconsistent or subject to misinterpretation.  As a further check on the validity of the data, we corroborated the project cost and funding data with regional budget staff.  Based on this, we believe that the data upon which the report is based are accurate.  Visitor center building cost data, which we gathered as part of the questionnaire and to which Interior makes reference, were not used in the report.  We gathered this data because the Park Service did not have them available.  However, in discussing visitor center building cost data with the parks and with the Park Service construction staff, we found that the data are subject to different interpretations and assumptions about what specific costs should be included.  For example, parks used different interpretations on whether or not to include site development costs, which Interior points out in its comments can be a major cost in the overall visitor center project costs.  Given that the visitor center building cost information did not pertain to our overall objectives, and that the data are subject to different interpretations and assumptions, we decided that this data would need to be studied in more detail and included as part of a separate review. 2.  We strongly disagree that information on visitor center building costs is more meaningful than the total cost of the projects.  As stated above, our objectives were to discuss the cost, functions, and funding sources for visitor center projects, not buildings.  Our purpose was not to provide data to allow comparisons with other agencies’ or organizations’ facilities, as Interior asserts would be possible if cost-per-square-foot data were available.  The requesters asked that we gather data on overall visitor center projects because the total project costs reflect all costs related to developing and constructing a visitor center, and represent the cost to the taxpayer.  In addition, in reviewing visitor center projects, the requesters are concerned that visitor center projects have an increasing number of functions. Although Interior states that the cost-per-square-foot data are more meaningful than project costs, it has not developed a database containing this information. Furthermore, Interior asserts that the data could have been easily developed from data already accumulated.  We disagree because, as we pointed out above, the data are subject to interpretation and need to be clarified and studied in a separate review. 3.  We believe that trends in visitor center project costs cannot be identified.  Our attempt to develop trends by plotting total and average project costs by the year projects were completed, left us unable to discern a trend because of the wide variation in projects.  Our comments regarding the trends that the Park Service says that it identified can be found in comment 18. 4.  We disagree. We believe that for the purpose of this study, general background information is needed to interpret the data and that we have provided complete information for this purpose.  We did make technical changes, as appropriate, to address Interior’s specific comments on incorrect information related to these processes. 5.  We recognize that the Park Service’s planning criteria and preliminary cost guidance initiatives have a direct bearing on our report and as such, our draft report to Interior included a discussion of these initiatives. 6.  We disagree.  Our objectives were to discuss overall project costs and functions. The Park Service told us that costs could not be broken out by functions, such as transportation facilities, and therefore we could not provide costs by individual function.  We decided that the selective reporting on one type of cost, such as site development cost was not warranted. 7.  As part of our study, we attempted to include cost-per-square-foot data for visitor center buildings early on and were told that the Park Service does not maintain this data.  We then attempted to collect data as part of our questionnaire that could be used to calculate the cost per square foot of individual visitor centers.  However, because of various interpretations and the assumptions used in calculating square foot costs, we did not use the data that we developed.  We agree that cost-per-square-foot data is important information and question why the Park Service has not yet developed the data. 8.  See comment 7. 9.  We coordinated with the Park Service in the development of our questionnaire and incorporated its changes where appropriate. Further testing also resulted in modifications to the questionnaire that provided as much consistency and clarity as possible to the terms used in the questionnaire. 10. We disagree that the Park Service was not kept informed of the development of our questionnaire.  Based on our discussions with the Park Service, we were told that much of the data that we needed was available from the parks or the regions, as the park superintendents and regions are ultimately responsible for the completion and development of projects.  As we point out in our scope and methodology description in appendix I, we discussed the questionnaire with officials at 11 parks, not a few parks as Interior indicates.  We used our professional judgment and input from our professional survey design staff to make changes that were necessary to improve the questionnaire’s clarity. We do not typically share the respondents’ reactions while we are developing the questionnaire. 11. We agree that a full set of responses has never been shared with anyone in the Park Service.  It is our policy not to share questionnaire responses and data with agencies until after we have completed our analysis and final report.  In the questionnaire itself, we deliberately provide space for explanations of any unique circumstances and for any other information the respondents felt it necessary to convey. As a matter of practice, we follow up on questionnaire responses when we determine that it is necessary to clarify data.  It is not unusual for respondents to provide handwritten comments on a questionnaire, even when they understand the questions, because respondents may want to further explain their answers. 12. While the Park Service says this information is the most significant data on visitor centers, it has not developed a database with this information.  The Park Service was only able to calculate the data contained in its comments after we identified the 80 visitor center projects.  Until the Park Service develops such a database, it will be unable to compare and benchmark its costs against those of other agencies and organizations.  As previously stated, our objectives were not to provide data for comparisons and benchmarks with projects of other agencies and organizations. 13. The data to which Interior is referring are not GAO’s data and we cannot comment on their validity or make assertions about them because they were not available to us during the 8-month period of our review. 14. We disagree with the assertion that the data obtained have problems because they were gathered through a questionnaire.  The data to which Interior is referring are data on visitor center building costs.  We gathered data on visitor center building costs through a questionnaire to individual parks because the Park Service does not maintain a database of these costs.  We noted that the calculation of these costs depends on certain assumptions, such as how much site development cost to include and whether to include management and contingency costs.  Because of the inherent difficulties and the need for these assumptions to be clarified, we ultimately decided not to report these data. 15. As previously mentioned, the Park Service only developed the data in this section after we had completed our audit work.  In our discussions with the Park Service about the cost-per-square-foot data included in the comments, the Park Service made certain assumptions about what costs to include or not to include.  For example, the costs related to management, contingencies, or site development costs were not included in the calculations.  The inclusion or exclusion of these costs can have a major impact on the cost per square foot of the facilities. As previously stated, because of these interpretations and assumptions, we believe that further study of this data is warranted. 16. We disagree.  We have provided this perspective in other areas of the report, including a discussion of the park’s decision to renovate or replace a visitor center building.  We used the term “old” to describe general conditions that could lead to the construction of a new building, including a new building to replace an existing building.  We added, in response to the comments, a footnote with this technical definition. 17. We reported on the projects for which new buildings were being built.
We did not make specific reference to projects for which a visitor center was the first in the park or in an area within a park. The construction of a new building is significantly different—and poses different challenges in the construction process—than the renovation of an existing building.  We added a footnote to the report and to the table in appendix III that identifies the projects that are replacing existing visitor centers as opposed to providing a new building for a park. 18. We disagree.  We do not find the Park Service’s comparison of the average cost of Mission 66 visitor centers with the average we estimated for the 80 visitor center projects in our report to be an acceptable trend analysis.  An appropriate trend analysis would involve a time series—that is, data over a number of years—of comparable data.  We do not believe that a comparison of two points, each an average of approximately 10 years of data, accurately demonstrates a trend.  Also, we do not believe that data from Mission 66 visitor centers and our data on visitor center projects are comparable because our data consists of projects that include both construction of new buildings and renovation of existing buildings, while the Mission 66 visitor centers were all newly constructed.  We attempted to develop trend information using the cost data for the projects for the 10-year period of this study, but as stated in the report, because of the variation in the projects, we were unable to discern a trend.  Interior also asserts that we had a second and third opportunity to identify trends by comparing the size of visitor center on a functional basis and costs per square foot.  As pointed out in the report, the Park Service has recently contracted for specifically this type of analysis and we did not want to duplicate these efforts. 19. We disagree. As shown in the report, the cost of a project to renovate a building is on average $4,392,000 while the cost of a project to construct a new building is on average $8,826,000.  We also show in appendix II of the report that projects with renovations generally do not have as many functions as projects with new buildings.  We do point out in the report that renovations are not always less expensive than projects with new construction, and we have highlighted instances when a visitor center renovation may be more costly than the construction of a new building. 20. Interior has misinterpreted what we wrote.  We do not state that projects added by the Congress are ready for construction.  Our point is that when the Congress identifies a project for construction, the Park Service works with the Congress to get the project ready for planning and construction. To avoid confusion, we clarified this language. 21. We believe that our discussion of these two initiatives is sufficient for the purposes of this report.  Because we were not asked to review the process that the Park Service has in place to construct its facilities, nor the improvements that it is planning, we did not discuss these in detail. We do discuss the Park Service’s policy on park facilities, the responsibilities of the Development Advisory Board, and the initiatives underway by the Park Service to develop construction planning criteria and preliminary cost guidance for facilities, including visitor centers.  As we point out in our observations, we believe that the initiatives the Park Service is undertaking, if implemented efficiently, are a step in the right direction. 22. We disagree that this is an incorrect conclusion.  The variation in visitor center projects occurs in part because many of the projects are still in the stages of initial development and the Park Service relies on review of the projects after their development to correct scoping problems. The Department states that a lack of guidelines for parks does not result in inappropriately scoped projects because the Park Service has processes in place to ensure that the scope and size of visitor centers are appropriate.  While it may be true that processes are in place to review visitor center projects and their scopes, without guidelines on the type and size of functions that can be included, projects can be overscoped or underscoped.  If the Park Service had guidelines for what should be included in a visitor center project, there could be limits on the scope of the initial projects proposed by parks. 23. We agree and have changed the language of the report. 24. We agree and have added language to clarify that the parks identify a general project scope, meaning that they consider what functions they need and develop an estimate of their square footage needs. 25. We agree.  We were referring to the predesign process and changed the text to reflect this. 26. We did not intend to say that the Park Service and the Congress identified completely separate groups of projects.  We changed the language of the report to say that the Congress concurred with the Park Service’s projects and added its own projects. 27. We noted that the Park Service buildings are expected to have a long lifespan because the Park Service policy is to renovate and reuse buildings before they are replaced.  We agree that elements may need to be renovated and that maintenance costs may become more expensive as the buildings age.  We clarified the text to indicate that before 40 or 50 years elapse, maintenance and operation costs could become expensive and elements of the building may need to be updated. 28. We agree and clarified this section of the report to more clearly reflect the different stages of the planning and design process and to reflect the time at which the park makes this decision.