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Posted by Ballpark Frank (66.58.238.35) on 12:05:20 07/27/12
In Reply to: I respectfully disagree posted by Bison
Bison,
Do you remember what happened when the NPS took the first iteration of the planned building to bid? The lowest bid was a good 40 to 50% higher than what was budgeted for the project. As I remember, they scaled the size of the building back about 40%, and put it out to bid again.
I still remember the first time I came over Blanding Hill, headed east, and saw that roof dominating the viewscape. That clashed with my prior belief that the NPS was committed to preserving the natural-ness of the viewscape. If you ever overfly the Canyon area, you will be amazed at how well hid the sewage treatment facilities are. I never knew where they were until I was a couple thousand feet above the Lower Falls, and looked to my right. I guess there are some facilities that are deemed worthy of keeping beyond the view of visitors, and others are thought appropriate to compete with Nature. (You've heard my rants about these Visitor Center projects being an attempt to generate a "legacy", not unlike the Egyptian kings competing with each other to build progressively larger pyramids.)
As a former Interpretive Division employee, I never quite understood the seemingly pressing need to renovate the Canyon VC and replace the Old Faithful VC prior to doing something about the Albright Visitor Center in Mammoth. I'll never forget the day, in May or June of 2000, when I saw a very irate Lee Whittlesey storming through the building. I asked someone what was going on, and was told that "once again", the public rest rooms downstairs were flooding. Apparently, there are chronic problems with the plumbing, and when someone puts something into a toilet that doesn't belong there, it can cause flooding that flows into the basement of the building. Many of you will remember that prior to the construction of the Heritage and Research Center (HRC), the Yellowstone Archives, which contain all sorts of irreplaceable books, maps, and other items, was located in the basement of the building that houses the Albright Visitor Center. I was told that the basement flooding was a chronic problem that had happened several times in the past. Whenever it occurred, the staff in the Archives had to go into scramble mode, trying to move valuable artifacts and records to high ground. Yes, the HRC was eventually constructed, and the risk to the Archives was resolved, but my complaint is that the flooding problem was tolerated by leadership for so long, and the renovation of the visitor center, upstairs, was prioritized behind both Canyon and Old Faithful.
Here is a less known fact, regarding the renovation of the Canyon VC. A year or two after it opened, I noticed a building going up between the YPSS station and the campground amphitheater. I asked someone what was being built. I was told it was a new ranger station, required because the renovated visitor center did not have enough room to house it. (The old visitor center housed the ranger station.) This dovetails with the screwy engineering that resulted in the new Yellowstone Justice Center not having sufficient room to house the jail. Prior to its construction, the need for a new jail was offered as a pressing need that the new center would address. Your tax dollars at work!
Ballpark
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