NEW SCOTLAND – Plans for the reimagined John Boyd Thacher State Park are moving forward, as grant funding comes in and personnel is shuffled.

The Open Space Institute’s Alliance for New York State Parks announced in December that it received a $220,000 grant for the proposed visitor center at Thacher Park.

“OSI has long been associated with building parks,” said Eileen Larrabee, the associate director for the alliance. “We’ve done a lot of work to expand parks, including Thacher.”

OSI launched the alliance in 2010 in response to the state’s fiscal crisis when 40 percent of the state’s parks and historic sites were threatened with closure. The alliance is a public-private partnership that advocates for continued funding for the parks system.

The alliance applied specifically for a state grant for the visitor’s center at Thacher Park in order to support tourism and economic activity in the region, Larrabee said.

A center, as part of the park’s master plan, “would benefit visitors and allow them to orient themselves to the park, and understand all the park has to offer,” Larrabee said.

The $220,000 grant is allotted for “exhibitry and other interpretive projects to help people understand the geology of the park, and the history of the park,” Larrabee said. “That’s the part we’ll be supporting, through this grant.”

The new exhibits at the welcome center will be designed to complement those already in place at the Emma Treadwell Thacher Nature Center in the former Thompson’s Lake portion of Thacher Park, she said.

Recreational uses

In addition to the proposed visitor center, plans for the re-invented park include cave tours, rock climbing, and zip-lining.

William Von Atzingen, the maintenance supervisor at Thacher Park, said that the park’s former manager, Chris Fallon, no longer works at the park and has not yet been replaced.

“I have a good idea of what’s going on,” said Von Atzingen, who noted his nine years on the job.

He said this week that the specific site for the proposed zip-lining had not yet been decided, nor had a contract for the provider been finalized.

“A proposed contract is still going through Albany,” he said. “The park will make a decision.”

Von Atzingen serves on a planning committee for the park, and he contributes his knowledge of the park’s infrastructure during the re-design of the park, he said.

Currently, he said, some work has begun, including work on the four new bathrooms proposed in the park’s master plan.

The park still offers the same recreation possibilities it always has as a four-season open space, Von Atzingen said. With only four to six inches of snow on the ground, some park users may not be able to snowshoe, he said. The snowmobile trails, however, are open.

There is enough snow for cross-country skiing, also, he said, but the park has not been inundated with visitors this week.

“It’s been extremely cold,” he said. “We have people in the park everyday.”

Calls to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation were not returned.