Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | November 26, 2018 | wbjournal.com New Blackstone River Valley visitor center creates new expectations for the National Park BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor Industrial past and future S ince the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Cor- ridor was designated in 1986, there were plans for a visitor center in Worcester. Last month, finally, that center came to fruition. e $21-million center off McKeon Road features the park's first interactive exhibits to tell the industrial history of the valley and of the river itself, which once helped power mills from Worces- ter down to Providence. "A visitor center is one of the worst misnomers you can imagine," said Harry Whitin, the chairman of the board for the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. e center, Whitin said, can teach a visitor all the basics of the corridor and historical details they may never have known. Budget challenges With the center now open, corridor officials are hoping the building will help bring visitors to the park at a time when it's struggling with significant budget cuts. "We're having a real financial crisis in the corridor," Whitin said. "e visitor center is a crucial component of our survivability." e corridor was once budgeted for $950,000, an amount by 2015 dropped to $650,000. It fell in the fiscal 2018 year, too, to $400,000. For fiscal 2019, which began Oct. 1, the corridor is budgeting just $300,000. "is type of program isn't seen as a priority," Devon Kurtz, the acting executive director for the Blackstone Heritage Corridor, said of the Trump Administration and the federal government. ose cuts have led to cuts to per- sonnel and programming and have forced corridor officials to lean on the new visitor center to attract tourists to the park, which is the second oldest of 49 such heritage areas in the National Park Service system. e corridor relies heavily on volun- teers, which complement its paid staff of 2.5 people at the headquarters and one full-timer and four part-timers at the new visitor center. Despite the bud- get restraints, the corridor is in need of a business manager, Kurtz said. Without an endowment, the corridor must push for government funds and make appeals to foundations each year to create its budget. "We're talking to lots of people and trying to drum up support in that way," Kurtz said. e corridor – which stretches through Millbury, Uxbridge, Pawtucket and other communities until end- ing in Providence – is not like many other parks where a visitor might pass through gates or checkpoints and make attendance easy to count. e Slater Mill in Pawtucket, perhaps the corridor's most high-profile loca- tion, is one exception. e mill said it has had more than 20,000 visitors pass through the museum in each of the last five years through 2016, not counting those who passively use the grounds or read its interpretive displays. For the rest of the corridor, the lack of a tangible place to start and find information has been a challenge. "e corridor has been more of an ephemeral concept instead of some- thing physical," Whitin said. "With this big center in Worcester, we're adding the physical component." A center 20 years in the making Congressman Jim McGovern (D- MA) said he first secured funding for the building in 1998, 12 years aer the corridor was first established. e visitor center cost over $21 mil- lion, according to McGovern's office. Federal spending covered $13.7 mil- lion, with another roughly $7 million committed by the state. e remainder was mostly a mix of city funds and money raised by the Blackstone River PHOTO/GRANT WELKER Devon Kurtz, the acting executive director of the Blackstone Heritage Corridor, gives a tour of the new Worcester visitor center, which the corridor sees as critical to bring in more tourists and revenue.

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