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Efforts to staff the Ashland welcome center have stalled By TONY BOOM Mail Tribune ASHLAND - Locked restrooms, a kiosk with brochures and phones for information and reservations are all that await visitors at the welcome center here. Signs on Ashland Street, just off Interstate 5, direct visitors up Washington Street to the site that has been closed since December. I-5 rest stop would help While state and local tourism officials look again at another interim visitor center, they continue to hope for a rest stop and information center on Interstate 5 near Ashland. "All this work (on interim centers) that everybody has been doing points to the fact that we really have to get this rest area built," said Julie Curtis of the Oregon Tourism Commission. The Oregon Department of Transportation owns land for a rest stop off I-5 at Crowson Road. Craig A. Stone and Associates of Medford has been hired as a land-use consultant for the project. Adjacent property owners have claimed the rest area is not permitted on the land, which is zoned for exclusive farm use. "The plan is to have all our stuff submitted to the county the first part of next year," said Monte Grove, ODOT area manager. "If there are appeal challenges, we have to go up the process and continue to work the issue." Grove hopes to bid the project next year, but appeals could delay that plan. Efforts to reopen a staffed welcome center at 645 Washington St. are stalled. But state and local tourism officials hope to have a modular office at the site and rest-rooms open during July. "The beginning of July would be the earliest," said Julie Curtis, assistant director of the Oregon Tourism Commission, which runs state visitor centers. "I can't imagine that it would be faster. The (city) conditional use permit takes 30 days." The center closed in December when the Ashland Ranger District said it would no longer be able to sublease space for the operation. The ranger district is renegotiating its lease for less space. The tourism commission plans to lease 1,000 square feet in the building. "We were hoping to have been able to remodel, but the Forest Service had to be out of there and moved into their new space," said Curtis. "The Ashland Ranger station is slow in getting that started," said Pete DeProsperis, general manager of ARO Partners, of Carlsbad, Calif., the building's owners. Neither the ranger district nor the commission has signed leases, said DeProsperis. "Lease terms have been conditionally negotiated. I feel like both parities are committed," he said. Internal processes have slowed the Forest Service, said Ashland District Ranger Linda Duffy. "Our hopes are to remodel this as soon as we can." Curtis will visit Friday to meet with the Ashland Chamber of Commerce's Mary Pat Parker and others to consider a trailer office. Parker is examining rentals, city requirements and other details. The center started sharing space and office staff with the ranger district in 1997 after its former home at a rest stop on I-5 closed in 1995. Set-up costs for a 12-by-56 modular office would be roughly $10,000, said Curtis. A director, two part-time staffers and volunteers would run the center. The last year the I-5 center was open it had 78,231 visitors. Last year, the best year for the Washington Street site, saw 46,395 guests. "We definitely get visitors," said Maria Koziol in the ranger district's reception area. She said many of the visitors remembered the location from previous stops. Other visitors may go to the Ashland Chamber's information locations downtown or to one on Center Drive in Medford. Visitor numbers at the Center Drive site are up, said Julie Petretto, director of Medford's Visitors and Convention Bureau. "We have benefited a little, but we are all losing a little (with the Ashland center closed)," said Petretto. Reach Ashland bureau reporter Tony Boom at 482-4651, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.