Hilary Clinton may believe that it takes a village to raise a child, but as those involved in the planning and construction of the Quechee Gorge Visitor Center can tell you, sometimes it can take a village to raise a building as well, especially a building that has been almost 15 years in the making.

Although a lengthy process, the $2.5 million, 3,200-square-foot Visitor’s Center is now finished; its completion marked by a June 23 dedication. Funding came from a variety of sources including numerous grants. $1.15 million came from a Public Lands and Highways Federal Highways grant. The Army Corps of Engineers, owners of the new facility, contributed $930,000, and an enhancement grant of $350,000 aided in the sidewalk improvements.

“This has really been a great cooperative effort, to work with people who maybe had different goals in mind, but who came together to achieve a common one,” says Mark Wilmes, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In addition to the Army Corps of Engineers, there were a number of principals involved in the Project including the Vermont Department of Forest and Parks, which leases from the Army Corps the land where the visitor center is located, and the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce, which will staff and manage the facility. Other key entities included VTrans and the Town of Hartford as well as the Quechee Gorge Management Committee, consisting of interested members of the community and nearby businesses.

“This has really been a great cooperative effort, to work with people who maybe had different goals in mind, but who came together to achieve a common one.”

The project originated nearly 15 years ago out of a concern for pedestrian safety near the gorge and a need for public restrooms. 500,000 visitors come through the area annually with at least 90,000 leaving their vehicles to walk the nearby trails.

“The Corps’ main concern was to protect the resources and the public safety. Basically there were no sanitary facilities for the public. Since it is such a sensitive area, there was an impact to the resources without having a facility designed to handle the number of people. This is an important feature that we’re now providing,” says Wilmes.

The visitor center also offers visitors a destination upon leaving their vehicles.

“There was really nothing that drew you to one place. The visitor center is going to draw people to this area and is going to be a place where they will be able to come in and get information about all of Vermont, the Corps of Engineers, the flora, fauna and natural resources in the area and learn about the gorge and its history,” says Wilmes.

Lori Hirshfield, director of Planning and Development for the Town of Hartford, estimates that the new visitor center may attract 200,000 people through its doors.

The Building

The exterior of the facility is unassuming and deceiving in its size and appearance. The red, two-story wood frame structure with pitched roof was “specifically designed to look like the sheds and warehouses across the street that were remnants of the railroad line, says George Turner of Banwell Architects, architect of Lebanon, NH.

Built into the hillside, the facility literally draws visitors from the busy roadside, taking them into a surprisingly open and spacious building comprised of natural wood and glass, down a grand staircase to a back patio and out into nature.

The actual location for the footprint of the building was “very restricted,” says Michael Rosa, project manager with general contractor Trumbull-Nelson Construction Company. Since the space was compact the challenge was to maintain the greenery and work with the slope to transition visitors from the street to the walking trails below. “The glass opens the building up and pulls you in,” says Hirshfield. “The beautiful, natural woodwork complements the outdoors.”

Rosa says it was also “a challenge” to blend the patio and the retaining walls and stairs into the slope and achieve “a natural looking wall.” The high ceilings although creating an airy space, also presented a challenge with the light fixtures, which consequently had to be placed so high up that their ability to cast sufficient light was called into question and thus, needed to be resolved. The handrail along the staircase also posed a problem in accessing the glass display cases that lined the walls. DMS Fabrication from Barre, VT discovered a solution, redesigning a new, hinged handrail on site that could be disconnected and lowered in place to provide easy access.

The interior of the visitor center will feature 2-foot by 4-foot panels, offering information on the history of the region, the gorge, and the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to the Chamber’s offices, the building houses a multipurpose room, a mechanical room, a handicap accessible lift, an yes, public bathrooms.

At the outset of the project the location of the building was also a challenge.

“We had to work with the lay of the land and there were potentially a few different options – nearer the gorge and farther away from the gorge, down more near the campground,” says Turner. Although Turner was originally in favor of a site that would provide a view of the gorge, this wasn’t possible. “We ended up with was quite a compromise I guess, but given that compromise, we were interested in coming up with a building that worked with the site’s unique features.

The Sitework

Sitework accounts for nearly “two-thirds of the value of the project,” estimates Rosa. In addition to the construction of the actual building, the project called for site and utility work including excavation, backfilling, grading, seeding, and planting; the construction of a parking lot and driveway complete with curbs, pavement marking and signage and a special crosswalk extending from the visitor center northerly across Route 4. The crosswalk will soon be modified, as part of a test pilot project for the State, to incorporate pavement lighting that will illuminate the crosswalk when activation pads are stepped on. “The State is taking another intersection of a similar nature and not putting pavement lighting on it and comparing the two to determine if there is any effect on pedestrian safety,” says Hirshfield.

Additional sitework involved the construction of a concrete sidewalk, landings and patio area, wooden stairs and a railing, a retaining wall, storm drains, water and wastewater piping and pumping stations and a leachfield. To achieve all this, some campsites in the Quechee State Park had to be relocated and trail system improvements made. The project also called for new water main installation and new curb and sidewalk construction along the north side of Route 4 as well as parking area improvements west of the Quechee Gorge Bridge.

“A lot of effort went into the project that people don’t see from the initial building,” says Wilmes. Bringing water to the visitor center, for example, was a major issue. “There was no water on the east side of the bridge. To bring the water we had to have drainage and catch basins to accommodate the drainage,” says Wilmes. The water had to be brought under the Quechee Gorge Bridge, a national historical site. This resulted in the need for historically correct hangers for the water line and unexpected expenses that were generously met by private businesses to see this phase of the project to fruition.

“There was also the septic to accommodate,” says Wilmes. He calls the resulting system “really well designed.” It pumps sewage from the toilets to a pumping station and leachfield in the campground.

These challenges were also compounded by the fact that this infrastructure work was being done at the same time that “the new stormwater controls came in from the Agency of Natural Resources,” says Gayle Ottmann, executive director of the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce. “Last summer if anyone traveled through here they must have wondered how businesses were surviving. It was a really rough summer for them. With all the equipment and dirt, we had to divert traffic, but they were very patient,” she says.