GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Discover Green Bay hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking to commemorate the beginning of construction activities on the new visitors center on Tuesday.

Located adjacent to Cabela’s on the corner of Lombardi Avenue and Argonne Drive, the new visitors center is expected to become a major destination hub for the state of Wisconsin.

Discover Green Bay held a temporary home over on Armed Forces Drive and now with a solidified venue, the company will be able to provide more of an impact on visitors to the area with brochure walls and many other things that will welcome travelers to the Green Bay area.

“It’s been a long road,” said Cameron Teske, Vice President of Visitor Experience for Discover Green Bay. “But with vast community support from Oneida Nation, Brown County, the State of Wisconsin, and many more, this dream that started even before my time here, has finally become a reality. It will make a great impact on our community.”

According to a release, in 2021, around 5.5 million people visited the Brown County area. Those visitors spent around $623 million in the community, which had an impact of around $1 billion on the local economy.

“Despite living in a digital communication world, there is no replacing face-to-face conversations and personal recommendations by local experts,” said Teske. “In the travel and tourism industry we thrive to increase high-value touch points and we have a lot of them with our visitors before they arrive. Now we have a place and a tool to have high-value conversations when visitors are in market, in person. Communities with a visitors center have proven to increase dollars spent. Our goal is to expand visitors’ spend throughout our community, extend the visitors’ stay, and encourage a repeat visit.”

Construction will officially begin around August 2022 and Discover Green Bay anticipates the completion will be around July of 2023.

For more information about Discover Green Bay, you can visit its website here.