Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993 TAG: 9304160447
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
EXPLORE PARK RECONSIDERED
FACED with the end, July 1, of operating support from its private backers, the governing authority of the state-owned Explore Park agreed this week to seek alternative funding. Tax dollars, in other words.This is appropriate. It is time for the state to get involved - ironically, in part, because plans for the park now are closer to what many of its critics have said they wanted: a scaled-down version putting more stress on education and environmental awareness.
Say what you will about the initial grand vision for the Explore Project, it anticipated an enterprise that would be profitable as a private venture. As pieces of that vision fell from the drawing board, so did any realistic expectation that operating costs could be - at least for a while - underwritten by park revenues.
The original conception's troubles were compounded by political miscalculation, tender egos and bickering localities' familiar failure to act in concert on much of anything. But the fundamental problem has been an inability to raise private money nationally to match local donors' contributions.
Fortunately, a fail-safe mechanism kicked in. Public money has been used for the acquisition of physical assets, land and roads. This way, if the necessary private contributions weren't forthcoming - as they weren't - the taxpayers still would own an excellent, accessible state-park site.
So the land has been saved, an achievement in its own right. The question now is: What does the state want to do with it? The land could be left to lie dormant, protected from residential and industrial development, as a largely undeveloped park.
That wouldn't be bad. But it would be a huge lost opportunity. Consider:
Simply what's already there - a lot of beautiful land and a 19th-century farmhouse, barn and outbuildings - is already drawing a steady stream of school groups for nature hikes and frontier re-enactments.
The private River Foundation, Explore's nonprofit fund-raising arm, says it wants to continue to support (and find others to support) park development with private dollars. If the park's Roanoke Valley backers don't have to bankroll Explore operating expenses, their dollars will be freed to make progress toward creating the features that can make the park a broader success.
The same is true of potential contributors elsewhere in the country. Foundations and the like may be more easily persuaded to give if they are underwriting not routine operating costs but, say, development of a new program or facility. (To which a donor's name might be attached.)
Under Rupert Cutler, a national figure in environmental circles, the park still can become the environmental-education center for the East Coast.
Though the infamous log-flume ride - which became a symbol to critics of all they saw wrong with the original Explore - is gone, important elements remain in the plans: reconstructed Blue Ridge town, brought to life by costumed inhabitants, craftspeople and local artisans; a Native American park; eventually, the zoo of North American animals that initially was to have been the park's centerpiece attraction.
State operational assistance for Explore Park would help shore up an area where the commonwealth is weak: the quality of its state-park system. But it also would follow the precedent of supporting a list of state-owned museums and cultural attractions, including the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
State support for cultural attractions is a tangled mess that needs to be sorted out. But that issue is distinct from Explore Park's future.
Scaled-down and redrawn, Explore may not become the major tourist destination or provide quite the pizzazz that the original version might have. But it still can be a unique and worthwhile attraction, and a key part of a package drawing attention, tourists, conferences and dollars. It still can contribute significantly to the region's economic development.
If local governments mustered the vision to recognize and act on this potential, perhaps they'd enhance chances that the state would do likewise.