Photo by George Lauby The south side of a new livestock building at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds. The Ag Society is paying for the building, but recieved an additional $33,000 Monday to improve an adjoining barn built in the 1960s.

Photo by George Lauby The east end of the livestock barn, with wash racks.

More than $270,000 in lodging tax money has been granted to seven tourism projects in North Platte, most of it earmarked for a new convention and visitors’ center.

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The Lincoln County Commissioners officially approved the grants Monday at the recommendation of an advisory committee.

The advisory committee reviewed eight applications. The only one rejected was a proposed Rail Town USA museum near the corner of Sixth and Jeffers.

The primary recipient will be the visitors' bureau itself, which hopes to build a new center someday near Interstate-80. The commissioners approved $200,000 to develop the center, but officials said the location and construction timetable are uncertain.

Other recipients include hike-bike trails, Cody Park tennis courts, the fairgrounds, girl’s softball fields and the raceway.

Visitors' center

Funds for a new visitors' center have been set aside for several years from lodging taxes, which were first collected 1988. The tax is levied on overnight motel visitors.

In 2006, the visitors' bureau brought forward plans for a $1 million building to house the visitors' center as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the Development Corporation in a park next to the 20th Century Veterans Memorial at the junction of I-80 and U.S. Highway 83.

The building would have also provided public rest rooms for the veterans’ memorial, but the project never materialized. The Western Nebraska Taxpayers Association opposed the plan when it came before the commissioners in 2008.

Roethemeyer told the Bulletin that plans for a new visitors' center are still indefinite, and the new building at Iron Horse Park is not in the works.

The commissioners agreed with the advisory committee that a new visitors center would be developed someday, located near the intersection of I-80 and U.S. Highway 83.

Lisa Burke, the executive director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the $200,000 visitors' center allocation fulfills a technical requirement that an application for the center be officially reviewed and approved, so that project would be held to the same standards as other grant recipients.

The recipients:

• North Platte Tennis Association -- $5,000 for resurfacing the Cody Park tennis courts. The total cost of resurfacing all eight courts is anticipated to be $55,000. The Tennis Association now has raised half the money needed.

• Lincoln County Ag Society -- $33,000 for improvements to livestock buildings at the county fairgrounds. Earlier this year, a new livestock barn was constructed next to the east beef barn. The Ag Society hopes to use this grant to raise the soil grade in the older east barn and connect the two barns together.

• Healthy For Life -- $5,000 for additions to the walking/biking trail system, connecting the north campus of the community college to E. Walker Road. The money will help pave the trail beneath Interstate-80 along the NPPD canal, organizer Judy Pederson said. But, the total cost of the project is much higher -- nearly $320,000 -- the paved trail is less than a half-mile.

• Platte Valley Girls Softball Association -- $12,000 for new sprinklers and conditioner/absorbent on three infields at the Dowhower Softball Complex.

• Nebraskaland Days - $7,000 for improvements to the Wild West Arena, which will be the final part of a four-year project to improve the stock pens.

• Lincoln County Ag Society - $8,000 for track improvements at the raceway, to build up the embankments.

“It’s the most we’ve ever given out,” Burke said. “We hope to give out more next year."

The grant recipients have 18 months to complete their projects. Most recipients plan to do so in the spring and summer, Burke said.

Rail Town museum

The Original Town organization asked for money to develop a Rail Town museum, with the idea that it would be located in the Connection homeless shelter building after a new shelter opens.

“The board felt it was a great idea, but wasn’t developed enough to warrant the funds at this time,” said Lisa Burke, executive director of the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

Original Town Chairman Dave Harrold said the concept is very much alive and looking for a definite location.

"We're not sure if we can satisfy all the rules and regulations to locate downtown," Harrold said. "It was probably a little unfair to ask them to approve an open-ended project, but we wanted to present the concept and get their opinion, which was very favorable."

Growing funds

Since the inception, lodging tax money has been spent to promote tourist attractions and fund the convention and visitors’ bureau. In 2006, the county commissioners required some of the tax money to be spent to improve tourist attractions, not just promote them.

The improvement grants began in 2006. A total of $47,065 was awarded between 2006 and 2008, including $17,500 in 2008.

And in May 2008, the commissioners increased lodging taxes by another 2 percent, doubling the amount of money available for promotion and improvement grants for tourism projects.

Lodging taxes currently generate nearly $320,000 a year, which is a slim part of the big picture -- what tourism does for the local economy of Lincoln County, Burke said.

“Total direct travel spending in Lincoln County in 2008 was $71.4 million,” she said. The local travel industry generates nearly 1,300 jobs with earnings of $17 million, Burke said, citing a study by Dean Runyan Associates that was funded by tourism agencies.