The Brown County Council approved transferring $300,000 worth of innkeepers tax to the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission to pay for renovations underway on the new Brown County Visitors Center downtown.
CVC President Kevin Ault said about $200,000 or more will be needed to finish the work on the former Circle K gas station at Washington and Van Buren streets. The total cost of the project is around $260,000, he said. It also includes landscaping and a new courtyard out front.
He said the CVC had pledged $200,000 to the project, with the CVB paying the rest from its budget.
Innkeepers tax is a 5-percent tax visitors pay on room and cabin rentals.
Ault said every year, the CVC has a “rollover” of unspent innkeepers tax of about $320,000. Currently, the innkeepers tax fund has $100,000 to $125,000 in it, but innkeepers tax from August, September, October and November still has to be collected, Ault said.
“If we don’t collect that by the end of the year, we won’t draw on that,” Ault said.
He said innkeepers tax collection was up $20,000 for 2017 compared to last year.
Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau staff moved out of their longtime home at the corner of Main and Van Buren streets last winter and into a small, shared office in the building that’s currently under renovation. The original opening date estimate was July.
Ault said the new Visitors Center is now expected to open by Oct. 1. Landscaping and renovations outside may still be ongoing, but the inside should be finished by then, he said.
