National parks boost tourism around the country. Will it happen in R.I.?

HISTORIC HOUSE: Meghan Kish, superintendent of three national parks in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, stands in front of the Captain Wilbur Kelly House at the Blackstone River State Park in Lincoln. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
HISTORIC HOUSE: Meghan Kish, superintendent of three national parks in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, stands in front of the Captain Wilbur Kelly House at the Blackstone River State Park in Lincoln. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Atlanta resident Michele Mindlin and North Kingstown’s Susan Gordon visited the Old Slater Mill National Historic Landmark District on a warm October day. The former college roommates chose the Pawtucket site in part because Mindlin makes a habit of visiting museums and historic sites across the world. And Gordon had visited the Old Slater Mill site before.

Both were surprised to learn that since 2014 the site has been part of a still loosely defined national park.

“Really?” questioned Gordon, who carries a National Park Service passport in her wallet. “And I’ve been here in the past two years.”

Outside of some NPS passports, a travelogue with pages to record visits to national parks, a coloring book and travel tote tucked away in the gift shop, visitors will find little evidence of the national park designation at the historic textile mill complex on the banks of the Blackstone River.

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Approved by Congress Dec. 12, 2014, under the National Defense Authorization Act, the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park includes five historic sites and districts that are within a 400,000-acre national heritage corridor that links 24 communities along the Blackstone River from Providence to Worcester, Mass.

It was touted by national and local advocates, including Robert D. Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, as having the potential to be a significant economic driver for the region and state.

“This new national park will enliven the stature of the Blackstone Valley with its place-based economic standing,” said Billington, a few days after Congress gave its approval. “It will enhance our opportunity to attract more manufacturing, commercial and high-tech businesses that choose to establish themselves in a place with a soul.”

Two years since the park’s designation, however, such economic activity still appears a long way off.

Some businesses report anecdotal evidence of increased tourism, but there are few signs of new local businesses or of active efforts by local communities to tap into the park’s economic potential.

Billington and other advocates, however, insist it’s too soon to judge the park’s potential to grow tourism and boost local businesses.

“No one should think there’s a conductor asleep at the wheel,” Billington said, noting much of the work to bring the national park designation to life is still taking place behind the scenes in two states and within the NPS, which must still determine the park’s official boundaries and a management plan.

The optimism of advocates such as Billington and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., was based largely on the success of other national parks across the country.

Scattered throughout the United States are 413 national parks dedicated to preserving and highlighting U.S. landmarks and sites of historic importance. Managed by the NPS, which is celebrating its centennial this year, these 84 million acres not only define regional culture for visitors, but often act as economic drivers, impacting communities up to 60 miles outside of their boundaries, according to the park service.

Across the country, national parks in 2014 saw 292 million recreation visits that brought $15.7 billion to local gateway regions, communities within 60 miles of a park. This contributed 277,000 jobs, $10.3 billion in labor income, $17.1 billion in value added and a total of $29.7 billion of economic output.

Impact increased in 2015 with a record-breaking 307.2 million recreation visits and $16.9 billion spent in gateway communities nationwide. In that year 295,000 jobs were supported by the NPS for $11.1 billion in labor income, $18.4 billion in value added and a total $32 billion economic output.

Maine, home to 100-year-old Acadia National Park, saw more than 2.8 million recreation visits and $248.6 million in visitor spending in 2015. NPS sites in Maine support 4,195 jobs for $122.1 million in labor income, $200.8 million in value added and a total economic output of $353.8 million.

But for some more recently created national parks, such as Congaree National Park in Hopkins, S.C., it can take time for economic benefits to grow.

Established in 2003 to preserve the nation’s largest intact, old growth, bottomland hardwood forest, visitation to the park supported 124 jobs in 2006 and brought in $3.8 million to the gateway community, according to the 2006 National Park Visitor Spending and Payroll Impacts report. The following year, the park supported 51 jobs and brought in $1.4 million to the local economy, according to NPS.

In 2015, the most recent year available, patronage of Congaree supported 61 jobs and generated $4.4 million in local spending.

In addition to the Blackstone national park, Rhode Island also has the Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence. The latter historic site encompasses only 4.5 acres but has shown increasing annual economic benefits. According to the 2015 National Park Visitor Spending Effects report, visitors to the Roger Williams National Memorial, established in 1965, spent an estimated $3.5 million in the state, a 20.6 percent increase over 2014. That spending supported 51 jobs, $1.9 million in labor income, $4.8 million in economic output and $3 million in value added in the local economy.

Similar data for the Blackstone national park has not been collected by the NPS because the boundaries for the park must still be finalized. Reed says that might not happen until 2020, though Meghan Kish, the superintendent for the two Rhode Island national park sites, said that could happen much sooner.

“In many ways, a new park and a new child are similar, they require a lot of attention. It may feel glacial on the outside, but it’s incredibly fast-paced on the inside,” she said.

One of several details still being ironed out is the location of 10 acres of land in Woonsocket for a curatorial, maintenance and visitor-operations facility. After losing out on a long-term lease with R.I. Department of Transportation, NPS staff are currently looking for a permanent space for this facility, which was called for in the legislation approving the park.

Kish described the Blackstone national park as a “conundrum” for park planners and local officials because it is made of several separate sites spread across two states. No one local entity or community is charged with marketing or business-development efforts tied to the park.

Kish said the Blackstone park has witnessed an increase in visitors, especially those looking to have their NPS passport stamped.

“Anecdotally, visitation has increased, people are there because of the national park … [and] the passport is the first indication we are on the radar,” she added. But the park service has not been keeping track of those visitors.

“Once we have a boundary we can start taking data, but right now there’s nothing technically in the park to take data on,” she said.

MIXED IMPACT

Without established boundaries, local businesses are reporting mixed impacts from visitors to the new park.

Jeanne Pepin Budnick, co-owner of Woonsocket’s Pepin Lumber, is the president and chairperson of the Blackstone Valley Independent Business Alliance, a group of locally owned, independent businesses. She said some businesses, such as Cumberland’s Dyane’s Sweet Tooth and Del’s Lemonade, benefited from increased tourism, especially from a bicycle path, since the establishment of the park. But neither of those businesses could quantify the benefit.

Abbey Salvas, store manager of Del’s Lemonade Cumberland, started working at the shop in 2014 and said she’s aware of the region’s designation as a national park. While she could not compare sales to previous years, she said the bicycle path does bring in a lot of customers.

Mike Doucette, assistant manager of Dyane’s Sweet Tooth, said he “wasn’t even aware it was a national park.”

Pepin Lumber runs a private bicycle recycling program and operates a small general store in the lumber yard, which often sees tourists.

In addition, Pepin Budnick said the company “indirectly benefited” from the park designation by selling to subcontractors hired by the state during the new bicycle path’s construction.

Ann Jallette, owner and manager of neighboring Vose True Value Hardware, and a fellow BVIBA member, said she’s not yet sure about the economic impact of the park on businesses like hers.

She believes her business may be indirectly benefiting from visitors who stay in a local hotel, but couldn’t say for sure.

Jallette says she is optimistic about the park’s potential and hopes, as the years pass and more attention is paid to the park, it becomes economically beneficial to local communities.

Local entertainment venues and organizations also see potential to benefit from the anticipated tourism boost, when it finally happens.

Pawtucket Red Sox Vice President of Sales Rob Crain says the team’s administration does not track where attendees come from and therefore cannot say if the team’s business had been impacted by the park to date.

In the future, however, Crain plans to use the park as a selling point, saying: “not everybody has a national park in their backyard.”

As soon as next season, Crain is hoping to sell packages that will offer discounted tickets to park visitors.

Pawtucket’s Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre has seen some increased business, says Oliver Dow, managing director, though he could not provide sales figures.

“The national park designation has helped the image of our community and given people more confidence to move here,” he said.

Given time, he believes, the theater and the city will be able to better measure the park’s impact.

“This is not something that is going to have a quantifiable impact overnight,” he said.

Lori Urso, executive director of Old Slater Mill, thinks there’s been an uptick in local tourism due to the park’s designation, but not to the extent that economic impact could be measured.

According to Urso, there were 18,685 visitors to Old Slater Mill in 2014, when the museum closed in February because of the brutal winter. There were 22,777 visitors in 2015. She can’t say how much of the increase is tied to the park designation.

She believes the park’s goal is to preserve historic and environmental resources. Economic value, she said, is a “collateral benefit.” Because of that, she said, “Making a judgement on whether a business has gone in since 2014 is not a good measure of success of the park.”

But that doesn’t mean local communities couldn’t do more to benefit from national park recognition, she said.

“It is the responsibility of local economic entities to create opportunities … that take advantage of increased visitation and turn it into consumer spending,” she said.

Sen. Reed, who has been involved in the park’s development since the 1990s, remembers what the Blackstone Valley was like before the state took interest.

“As a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, the river was more a place to dump things than exercise,” he said, and now the NPS designation will allow for even more outdoor activities.

The first significant federal support came in 1986, when Congress designated the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, linking the communities along the Blackstone River.

Reed said he and other lawmakers have worked to “dramatically improve” the Blackstone River using federal resources. That has included preserving historic buildings, creating museums, constructing visitor centers and building permanent exhibits in the corridor.

According to Reed’s office, since 1999 the federal government has invested $21.8 million into the land that is now part of a national park. That includes $927,000 for the new park in fiscal 2016.

The park’s direct impact on local businesses, Reed explained, will come in the form of additional tourist dollars that will make a “significant contribution” to the financial well-being of local economies.

And the “intangible prestige” of a national park will benefit businesses across Rhode Island.

Being home to a national park “only adds to our attractiveness as a state,” he said.

Lara Salamano, chief marketing officer for R.I. Commerce Corp., agrees with Reed, saying the state has included the Blackstone Valley in its marketing for decades.

Now that it includes a national park, “We’re easily going to be able to maximize the park’s visibility,” she said in a statement, without elaborating on how or when the agency would begin to do that.

HIGH HOPES

Billington still has high hopes the park will become an economic driver for the region.

In years past, the Blackstone Valley was thought of as a “has-been,” he said, “a place of disinvestment.”

He said the new park is not a “magic elixir” to revive the Blackstone Valley economy, but instead, “shows the place has a story people want to see,” and is worthy of the NPS designation.

He’s hoping Pawtucket can use a Working Cities Grant to improve Pawtucket residents’ economic well-being and get residents more involved in the community, including the new park.

Citing the NPS 2016 New Urban Agenda report, which calls for urban parks to become more relevant to the nation’s increasing amount of city dwellers, Billington suggested Pawtucket claim the NPS designation as a unique characteristic during the Working Cities Grant selection period.

“My thought was, let’s see if we can get the New Urban Agenda, the people and the new park working in synchrony and we might be able to distance ourselves and … capture the imagination of the selection team,” he said.

Pawtucket was one of seven communities to win a $15,000 planning grant, funded by the state and other public and private partners.

Bianco Policastro grew up in Rhode Island and now serves as director of program planning and development at Blackstone Valley Community Action Program in Pawtucket.

She sees the park as a source of employment for her unemployed clients. She hopes visitor patronage will lead to more services and hiring opportunities, which will necessitate training programs for existing unskilled or unemployed workers.

“Investing in the workforce around the park … that’s where the benefit comes from,” she said of the NPS designation. •

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