The Great Sacandaga Lake Discovery Center, A Southern Adirondack Destination
NORTHAMPTON – Destination: Fulton County and The Great Sacandaga Lake Discovery Center (GSLDC) is Fulton County’s investment and commitment to its local history, tourism and recreation. The planned Discovery Center will be a regional attraction for Fulton, Saratoga and the NYS Route 30 byway through the Adirondack Park.
The Discovery Center is projected to be the southernmost visitor attraction along the Adirondack Route 30 corridor, complementing any trip to the Adirondack Experience in Blue Mountain Lake and The Wild Center in Tupper Lake.
The facility will feature the incredible history of the Great Sacandaga Lake and its role as a river regulating reservoir and recreation destination. The unique story of its creation is compelling, with aspects that should never be forgotten.
“The extraordinary story of how the Sacandaga was created, the reasoning for it and the remarkable sacrifices made must be told,” states Fulton County Administrative Officer, Jon R. Stead. “It is an important part of our history, an Adirondack history that needs to be conveyed so the story is never lost.”
Created in 1930, the Great Sacandaga Lake is a manmade body of water built to mitigate flooding that occurred along Hudson River communities. In an undertaking initiated and funded by the Great Sacandaga Lake Advisory Council, (GSLAC), a 2017 feature documentary “Harnessing Nature: Building the Great Sacandaga” inspired the proposal to construct a state-of-the-art center to bring the documentary to life.
Leveraging both state and federal investments, Discovery Center exhibits will include a rotunda, featuring a true-to-scale replica of the Sacandaga Valley prior to flooding. Exhibit kiosks of Then and Now, such as; “Ghosts of the Hamlets,” “Coney Island of the North” (former Sport Island and Sacandaga Park) and “Conkingville Dam”- an engineering marvel can be expected to be interactive with information and video.
The Discovery Center will host art and historic artifact displays, and will feature ever-changing, visiting displays keeping the information fresh for returning visitors.
The complete Great Sacandaga Lake Discovery Center promises to be a premier destination, attracting visitors with its location and accessibility to the Northville Placid Trail, a natural resources habitat and outdoor recreation. The building concept includes the Harnessing Nature Theater, educational classroom space for student research, Trout in the Classroom, and much more. Space will be available for the GSLAC and Great Sacandaga Lake Fisheries Federation (GSLFF) to use and local historians will have a designated research area. The goal is to work closely with the entire GSL community.
In the county’s “Vision 2026” Development Strategy, the Board of Supervisors advocated a priority goal of revitalizing the economy through tourism. To achieve this goal, the plan seeks to develop additional historic, cultural and entertainment venues; and to leverage the Great Sacandaga Lake’s attractiveness. The Great Sacandaga Lake Discovery Center will be a major step to meet these objectives, while highlighting the amazing history of the 29-mile engineering marvel.
Fulton County retained the services of Phinney Design Group for professional Architectural and programming services for this initiative. Phinney Design group is well known for its specialization in programming spaces and developing projects within the Adirondack Park, having taken on and completed projects such as: The Wild Center Bio Building, Tupper Lake, NY; Play ADK Children’s Museum, Marina and Golf Clubhouse Projects, Saranac Lake, NY and Ticonderoga Country Club, Ticonderoga, NY.
The mission for Phinney Design Group is to ensure through design a preeminent location for visitors, historians and educational organizations to learn about and appreciate the engineering marvel that is the Great Sacandaga Lake. They are designing an interpretive center and tourism venue with the goal of evolving into a cultural center, historians’ study/resource room, tourism attraction and recreational site. The GSLDC will have the unique ability to attract engineering enthusiasts, history fans, students, encourage eco-tourism, with outdoor recreation opportunities all to benefit the Fulton, Saratoga, and Hamilton County Regions.
Another county engineering partner, Environmental Design Partnership, is handling site engineering and application processes for the project.
The commercial section of the Route 30 corridor selected to house the center is located on the west side of the highway overlooking the Great Sacandaga Lake in the Town of Northampton. The property ends just north of at the intersection with the bridge leading into the village of Northville.
This trek has a grand view of the Great Sacandaga Lake and a close proximity to the Northville Placid Trail. Composed primarily of undeveloped land, it is an ideally suited site given its exposure along the corridor, pedestrian access into the village over the bridge, and it is in close proximity to the popular Northville/Northampton Municipal Beach. This site proved to be an ideal location to support the county’s initiative to develop a center dedicated to the story behind the construction and management of the Great Sacandaga Lake.
Phase I of the project is expected to break ground in the spring of 2025, with projected completion planned for the summer of 2026. Information on the progress of this project can be found here on this site, 44lakes.com.