Lake Lowndes State Park amenities, including its bathhouse and several cabins, are getting a facelift to kick off the new year.
Over the next few months, the park will be constructing a new bathhouse facility and renovating four of the site’s six cabins with a fresh exterior coat of paint, stainless steel appliances and new carpet, Lake Lowndes Park Manager Penny Wyers told The Dispatch. The projects will cost at least $110,000.
“The importance of (these renovations) is to innovate and create space for future generations to enjoy here … at Lake Lowndes State Park,” Wyers said. “… To come out and enjoy nature and get to have memories and experiences. We just want to try to give them the best type of experience with the best amenities that we can.”
Work began Wednesday as crews tore down the campground’s old bathhouse and cleared the rubble to make room for new facilities, Wyers said. The new bathhouse, which will have new toilets, showers and a laundry room, is expected to be complete by mid-February, Wyers said.
The bathhouse facilities had been in need of repairs for a while and will come as a welcome change to the roughly 20,000 annual visitors that come through the park, Wyers said.
The total cost of the new bathhouse facilities is about $91,000, and is being covered by funding from the Mississippi State Parks, said Toney Fleming, park administrator for Lake Lowndes State Park, among others.
The park is also renovating four of the site’s cabins that were built sometime around the late 1970s, Wyers said.
“The two that aren’t getting renovated are already very modern,” Wyers said. “They were built in 2011, and they’re in very good shape. The other cabins are getting remodeled, … and they’ve never had any kind of update, except for furniture and some new flooring and new appliances. So I’m pretty excited to be able to have them completely remodeled on the inside and update them, and it’s just going to be a whole new experience.”
The updates to the four cabins will run between $20,000 to $50,000 and will bring them to code with Mississippi State Parks’ color scheme, Fleming said.
Those efforts should begin sometime next week, and the goal is to be complete by mid-March, Wyers said.
Fleming said he hopes to see additional upgrades made at the park in the future as more funds become available and more park needs are addressed annually by the Mississippi State Parks.
Some of these changes include the addition of tiny homes to help make camping more accessible for visitors, new tent areas with camping equipment already set up for use and paddleboats rentals to go alongside the camp’s kayaks, Fleming said.
“We’re doing a lot of different things,” Fleming said. “We’re thinking out of the hat as far as doing different projects out there, as far as doing a lot of other things. … A lot of good things are happening with state parks, and it’s because of our leadership and our agency over there and what they’re doing over there right now.”
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