CONSTRUCTION

Fifteen million of the $27 million dollar cost of design and construction was provided by the Yellowstone Park Foundation. Major donations to the Yellowstone Park Foundation for the new building were made by ConocoPhillips; Unilever; the Coca-Cola Foundation; Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.; the National Science Foundation; and the Kresge Foundation.

The new visitor education center will serve 2.6 million on-site visitors every year. It will feature new exhibits and host new programs to help visitors understand and appreciate geysers, hot springs, and other hydrothermal features in Yellowstone. The building will also contain an auditorium, research library, multi-purpose classroom, and educational bookstore. The building has been designed to be compatible with the rustic architectural style of the Old Faithful Historic District.

The National Park Service intends to seek certification of the facility as a high-performance, environmentally friendly "green" building. It has also been designed to set new standards for accessibility and for the interpretation of complex scientific information to the public.

The Yellowstone Park Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1996, based in Bozeman, Montana. The Foundation's mission is to work in cooperation with the National Park Service to fund projects that protect, preserve, and enhance the natural and cultural resources and the visitor experience of Yellowstone National Park.

More information is available online at www.ypf.org. CTA Architects Engineers of Billings, Montana, is the project architect. They recently teamed up with Swank Enterprises on Yellowstone's Canyon Visitor Education Center which was opened to the public in August 2006.

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