SHARONVILLE -- The sound of chain saws struck Bob Marcus as he walked though Sharon Woods.
"I go to that park just about every weekend to walk," said Mr. Marcus, of Blue Ash. "I love it because it's just an endlessly beautiful place. I could hear these chain saws. It just struck me -- we're cutting down real, live, living trees so we can put up a building and have a glass case and have a picture of the tree in it maybe? And say this is what nature looked like here before we wrecked it? This is a park where such things, you would imagine, would be protected."
What he was hearing was workers making room for a new visitor center at Sharon Woods. It has prompted some complaints about taking down trees for the construction, but park officials say they have kept the disruption to a minimum.
James Rahtz, communications director for the Hamilton County Park District, said they have received a handful of complaints from people about removing trees for the new visitor center, which is scheduled to be completed next spring.
"Obviously, we are a conservation agency," said Mr. Rahtz. "We are not happy when trees come down. This was a difficult decision for us. We've actually been looking at a visitors center for Sharon Woods for years. We've looked at many different locations."
Joy Landry, communications specialist for the park district, said the park board looked at several plans for the center, and even then, the one that would involve the least amount of disruption "still required the removal of some trees."
Construction costs for the 24,000-square-foot visitors center, which will be near Sharon Woods Village, will be about $3.4 million. The center will combine the visitors center with a rangers station, and should expand educational programs in the park, say park officials. Mr. Rahtz said park district officials are sympathetic, even encouraged that visitors are moved to complain.
"It's good to know that people care about the trees, care about what's going on in the park," said Mr. Rahtz. "But we feel that this visitors center is a needed facility. Certainly we're not happy when even one tree has to be dropped."
He said that when park officials made plans, they tried to minimize the impact on trees in the area. Of 397 trees that could have been lost to construction plans, the park district kept the number to just 58, said Mr. Rahtz.
The old visitors center was built in 1953 and is too small and antiquated for park needs, say park officials.
