Forest Service Looking At New Tahoe Center

Thirty years after it first was proposed, the U.S. Forest Service hopes to build a new visitor-information center on the south end of Lake Tahoe. The agency wants to construct a 12,000-square-feet building near existing facilities at Taylor Creek just west of South Lake Tahoe. The agency started developing the site in the 1960s. It includes a parking lot, interpretive trails, an amphitheater and a stream-profile chamber where visitors can view what happens below the creek´s surface.

A small building with restrooms and gift shop also was built, but federal funding fell through before the visitor center became a reality. The agency is taking public comments through June 5 on an environmental analysis of the impacts of such a visitor´s center. It´s expected to cost between $2 million and $3 million.