Niceville’s City Manager says the brick home located at 114 Evans Street will soon become a visitors center for the Turkey Creek Park facility. The city gobbled up the land and the house with some money from the Florida Communities Trust and Florida Forever Funds in 2014. 

“We are [looking into turning the home into a visitors center] as long as it is structurally sound,” City Manager Lannie Corbin said. Builders completed the home in 1956, when fewer than 2,500 people lived within Niceville’s city limits. More than 15,000 people live within Niceville’s city limits today. 45,000 people live in the Mid-Bay Area. 

The plans for the center are lofty. “I think it’s a nice building,” Corbin said, “we’re gonna put a lot of glass in it and an information center as you come in, [as well as] a nice walkway down to Turkey Creek.”

The bed tax money voters approved last October won’t be used for the project. Instead, the city will specifically plan to use the funds they budget for the Turkey Creek facility. 

The city plans to start on the facility this summer. They plan to finish with renovations in a couple of months. 

The city is putting the final touches on a canoe and kayak launch between the entrance to the boardwalk and the property where the visitors center will go. That project is expected to be completed in August.