A new solar-powered office and visitor center, a major wish-list item at Keystone State Park, is among long-desired upgrades officials hope to bring about by tapping federal pandemic recovery funds.

Cindy Adams Dunn, state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources secretary, stopped by Tuesday to assess needs at the Derry Township recreational site and to voice support for a proposed $450 million Growing Greener III funding initiative.

Proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf and the subject of bipartisan bills in Harrisburg, the initiative would draw upon Pennsylvania’s American Rescue Plan dollars to tackle such efforts as park rehabilitation, water projects and other environmental needs.

“There’s an opportunity in front of us that’s the biggest (funding) opportunity we’ve seen in 16 years,” Dunn said, citing a $12 billion economic impact from outdoor recreation in Pennsylvania. “We’re sixth in the nation as far as our outdoor recreation industry and what it brings back in revenue to the commonwealth, and we’re underinvested in it.”

Dunn would like to apply Growing Greener funds to some of the $1.4 billion worth of infrastructure needs at DCNR-managed facilities, such as state parks and forests, while sharing some of the dollars to support local community recreation projects.

At Keystone, park manager Kris Baker said, “We’re looking at a roughly $67 million backlog in infrastructure needs.”

Design work is nearing completion for a proposed new park office that would combine the functions of the current cramped administrative office on the north shore of the park’s central lake and the James A. Kell Visitor Center on the south shore. While the park’s environmental educator is based at the Kell center, four staffers share a single desk in the office, a modular building whose previous incarnations included a food concession.

“My dream is to bring all those folks under one roof,” Baker said. “We are busting at the seams.”

As proposed, the new office would be along Slag Road, opposite Pavilion No. 2 at the west end of the lake. It’s the same general area where visitors can access park camping amenities and where a trailhead is planned for a 4-mile spur of the Loyalhanna Trail that will connect the state park to Gray Wing Park in New Alexandria.

Bids for that previously funded trail project are to be opened in late April.

A related project is replacing the park’s outmoded sewage treatment plant with a new line that will extend service from Derry Township Municipal Authority.

Meanwhile, Baker noted his park’s storm culverts haven’t been updated since the 1960s.

“There are thousands of linear feet that will need addressed at some point in time,” he said.

The new park office is expected to include a solar power array that would offset the facility’s electrical consumption, Baker said.

“I’m hopeful this will go out to bid by the end of this year and hopeful we’ll see construction at some point next year,” Baker said of the new park office. “We’re closing in on it.”

The improved park facilities are needed more than ever. As more people have turned to outdoor recreation during the pandemic, Baker said, “We’ve had a tremendous amount of first-time park users coming out.”

Baker has seen attendance at Keystone averaging about 600,000 visitors annually. That’s a number he doesn’t expect to go down as high gas prices prompt many to stick closer to home for vacations.

The impact has been mirrored among all state parks, with attendance jumping from about 35 million in 2019 to nearly 47 million in 2020 and only partially receding last year, to about 42 million.

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