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The Garden of the Gods visitor center is perfectly situated to frame the park's distinctive rocks by the mass of Pikes Peak. Gazette file
BY BILL VOGRIN
THE GAZETTE
Developer and philanthropist Lyda Hill definitely has the holiday spirit of giving.
Hill is transferring ownership of her Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center to the nonprofit foundation she created to donate money to the city for park maintenance.
Paul Butcher, retired Colorado Springs parks director, said Thursday the gift of the visitor center, which Hill built for $3.5 million in 1995, will be finalized later this month.
“It’s a tremendous gift to the Garden of the Gods Foundation,” said Butcher, who sits on the board of the foundation. “It’s unusual for anyone to give a wholly owned business to a nonprofit foundation to operate.”
Butcher said he doesn’t expect anything to change in the operations of the center or the foundation.
“It now becomes the asset of the foundation,” Butcher said. “There will be no changes in staff at the center or anything. It will continue to fund things in the garden.”
Lyda Hill, at the Garden of the Gods Club in 2006. The Gazette file
It’s an unusual gift from a woman who is accustomed to thinking outside the norm.
In 1987, the city parks staff ignited a furious public debate when it solicited bids from private contractors to build a visitor center, amphitheater, riding stables and other amenities in the 1,300-acre city park to replace a badly deteriorated private home that had been converted to a visitor center.
When the controversy subsided, Hill came up with her own plan — a public-private partnership unusual for the time.
Hill proposed to build a visitors center with a state-of-the-art theater, interactive educational displays, dioramas featuring the fauna and flora of the park, a cafe and gift shop. It would sit just outside the park on 7.5 acres at its eastern entrance on 30th Street. In exchange, Hill received concession rights in the park.
She also agreed to give back profits each year, starting at $75,000 and increasing 3 percent each year regardless of the center’s income, to pay for enhancements in the park. She created the Garden of the Gods Foundation nonprofit association to receive and distribute the funds.
In 2007, Hill, a developer whose Dallas-based family built the Garden of the Gods Club, developed Kissing Camels Estates and Golf Club, and owns Seven Falls and Hill Development Co., recalled why she became involved.
“I was hiking in the Garden and noticed the trails were in terrible shape,” Hill said at the time. “The place was a mess.
“It was getting 2 million visitors a year, but the city didn’t have any money to protect it.”
Kids can't get enough of the dioramas in displays in the visitor center. Gazette file
Then she saw the 1987 ad for a visitors center and began thinking of different ways to get the center built.
The foundation and the annual contributions were a response to a few critics who accused her of trying to profit from the park at the city’s expense.
“It is a for-profit business that functions as a nonprofit,” Hill said in 2007. “All profits go to the Garden of the Gods Foundation, which exists to support the park.”
It was an untested concept in 1994 that has proved lucrative for the park and the city. Since the first grant of $89,560 in 1996, the foundation has donated about $1.7 million to the park.
In fact, when deep budget cuts decimated the parks department budget in recent years, the foundation came up with extra cash for the agency.
In 2010, it saved educational programs that serve about 4,000 local students each year. And it paid for park employees to lead nature walks and give educational talks.
The Garden of the Gods became a city park on Christmas Day 1909 when the heirs of Charles Elliott Perkins gave 480 acres to the city. It was expanded over the years, such as in 1932 when the city paid $25,000 for 160 acres that include Balanced Rock and Steamboat Rock.
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