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SPI Birding Center Will Not Affect Beach Nourishment
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Responding to e-mails sent to officials concerning the upscale project’s funding and the dire conditions of the beach, EDC and Board of Aldermen officials met Wednesday to discuss the birding center’s costs. The birding center needed to remain an issue apart from beach erosion, EDC members said.
And Mayor Robert N. Pinkerton Jr. argued that the responsibility for funding beach restoration rested on the shoulders of the state. “The beaches are public, and they are the state’s responsibility,” Pinkerton said. “This continually needs to be driven home. The state needs to step up to the plate, and Commissioner Jerry Patterson is doing a good job at getting that point across.”
 The town has approximately $1 million in emergency beach funds, but officials said beach repairs could not proceed without a source of sand. “We have the sand hauling from Park Road 100 and an anticipated re-nourishment from the [U.S Army] Corps of Engineers in November of 2008,” Pinkerton said. “But no major projects can be done until a proper sand source is found.”
Officials also spoke about funding beach re-nourishment through bonds, which could not be repaid quickly enough to benefit the projects, they said. Despite beach erosion, many residents applauded the idea of a $6 million dollar birding center that could begin construction on South Padre Island this year, if approved by the Board of Alderman.
“This is something the Island badly needs,” EDC President Richard Franke said. “There are no such facilities that exist in an upscale manner. I am positive that this will impact the economy.” The 10,000-square-foot center will include three-dimensional interactive exhibits, board walks, bird blinds and a five-story tower overlooking the Laguna Madre, officials said. An aquarium and lecture halls could be added later. “If we were to add another board walk and some shack, we would have no economic impact,” Franke said. “And the EDC is about economic development.”
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department granted the project $1 million on the condition that the design for the center would not be downsized. “We would not have received this grant if the scale of project was any smaller,” Franke said. The project is receiving other funds through town contributions and private donations. Also, the EDC invested in a 20-year bond for $5.2 million.
“We will be able to make substantial payments with the earnings from the center. This will defray the bond, ”Franke said. “This was structured appropriately where everyone could be comfortable with it and we are still able to continue beach re-nourishment.”
The EDC estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 visitors a year, paying $2 each, would generate $80,000 for the center annually, they said. “I believe this will be the number one tourist attraction second to the beach,” EDC board member, Pete Moore said.
The center would help education, he added. “School children from around the area will be coming down as thousands of them do with the [Gladys Porter] Zoo in Brownsville,” Moore said. Resident Jack Fitch applauded the project. “This area sorely needs additional quality infrastructure,” Fitch said. “You all are starting something that will add nature involvement. This is something we haven’t tapped into on this scale.”
By THERESA NAJERA/Island Breeze |
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By
mikead @
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 6:58 AM |
At last week’s groundbreaking of a world-class birding center on South Padre Island, plenty of elected and state officials arrived to applaud the project and local and state contributions.
Nestled along the bay near the SPI Convention Centre, the center will provide environmental education for schools and a place where wildlife enthusiasts will flock to observe South Padre Island’s diverse bird populations, especially during the fall and spring migrations.
A project of this scope takes years to bring to fruition, and planning started in 1999 with the leadership of the South Padre Island Economic Development Corporation and its President Richard Franke. Through the process, South Padre Island recruited the financial support from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and others.
But the approximately $6 million project required support from the voters to allow the EDC to fund a public park, something typically outside the agency’s scope of preserving our beaches. In September 2005, voters granted their approval, and EDC officials later secured a $5.2 million loan through a revenue bond with a unanimous approval from the Board of Aldermen.
Some citizens have already proven their commitment through approximately $150,000 in private donations, which is significant because the birding center will not take flight without continued community support. Although the launch of the center would not have occurred without government funding, our citizens now have a role to play.
Taxes should not carry the burden of funding the center’s operations. The EDC will sell memberships of varying levels, and admissions and gift shop sales will ease expenses. Still, residents and business owners need to expand their involvement in the project since the center will benefit tourism, restaurants, shopping, property values, quality of life and the environment.
When the building’s construction concludes — possibly in August 2008 —the EDC will need volunteers and donors to keep the site in operation. We should all cooperate to give it wings.
— Island Breeze |
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