Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge Administration & Visitor Center -

Marion, IL

Big Muddy is the site planner and landscape architect for a design team assisting the US Fish and Wildlife Service with the design of a replacement administrative headquarters and visitor center. The new building adds a visitor center function to the site that previously served only as the Refuge’s administrative headquarters.

The Service requested that the feasibility of reusing existing roads, parking lots, and a geothermal well field be examined during site concept development. The roads and parking lots had been resurfaced shortly before the original building was abandoned, and the geothermal well field was used less than five years.

The visitor center component in the new building is expected to serve 80,000 visitors annually. All recreational permits will be issued at the visitor center, creating peak times when large groups of visitors will come to the center to purchase their permits. Managing traffic flow and creating easy-to-navigate parking lots will be critical during these periods. The preferred site concept simplified traffic patterns, reused the existing roads, separated visitor and employee parking, reused and expanded existing parking lots, and provided short-term parking for vehicles as well as vehicles with boat trailers. The location provides sweeping views of Crab Orchard Lake.