MNHS revises Fort Snelling visitor center plan.

Byline: Brian Johnson

Under a revised plan, the long-anticipated revitalization of Historic Fort Snelling will happen in segments instead of one big project.

The Minnesota Historical Society said late Tuesday it plans to start a $34.5 million project this fall to replace the failing visitor center at the national historic landmark, but other hoped-for improvements will have to wait for more funding.

The initial idea was to create the new visitor center as the linchpin of a bigger $46.5 million "revitalization" project at Fort Snelling. Now the plan is to start with the visitor center and then tackle other improvements if and when more money is available.

A change in strategy was necessary because the society is still $15 million short of its funding goal for the overall project.

State lawmakers allocated $15 million in bonding money last year to the Fort Snelling project, but that was only half of what the society requested. Existing sources include $19.5 million in total from the state and $15 million in private money.

"We sharpened our pencils and took a look at what we could do with that amount, not knowing whether additional funds would be coming through at some future point," said David Kelliher, the society's director of public policy and community relations.

As part of the first phase, scheduled for completion in 2021, crews will remove and replace the existing underground visitor center. The new center will include a 4,000-square-foot exhibit within a rehabilitated 1905 cavalry barracks on the Fort Snelling campus.

The first phase also calls for new outdoor learning and "remembrance" areas, as well as parking, wayfinding and access improvements, the society said. Also in the works is an "interpretive plan" that "expands stories of the military, Dakota, African-Americans, Japanese Americans, women and more," the society said.

Updates to parking and the landscape will be reduced in scope under the revised plan. In addition, the first round of construction does not include a previously planned rehab of an 1880 ordnance building into orientation space.

The ordnance building and other improvements will move forward under a separate...

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