Snoqualmie partners with art gallery for visitor information center services

The city of Snoqualmie has a new plan in place for a visitor information center in historic downtown. The city will partner with the Art Gallery of SnoValley, on Railroad Avenue, to be the interim visitor information center for the rest of the year while a more permanent, long-term plan is developed.

At a regular meeting May 8, the Snoqualmie City Council approved $17,290 in Lodging Tax Advisory Committee (LTAC) funds for the non-profit gallery to provide information center services. The money will help cover operational costs including new signs and equipment, as well as helping to pay the rent and extending the hours of operation during the peak tourism season.

The service will begin on May 29, and ends on Dec. 31. The gallery will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day of the week during peak tourism season, which ends Sept. 4. The gallery will then close on Mondays, through the end of the year.

The visitor information center service was previously run by the Snoqualmie Valley Chamber of Commerce, which ended the operation after its former building on River Street was sold by the city last fall. Since then the city has not had a visitor information service.

The Art Gallery of SnoValley is operated by the Mount Si Artist Guild Collective, a group of 12 artists who volunteer their time and pay rent for the gallery’s location on Railroad Avenue. The nonprofit gallery opened in February of 2016 and recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.

Sally Rackets, a member of the Mount Si Artists Guild Collective, said that when the chamber ended visitor services, the gallery received encouragement to become the new information center. Rackets, along with other collective members Pam Whittington and Gayll Morrison, worked on an application to the city to serve the tourists this summer.

The gallery was uniquely prepared to serve as a visitor information center since it has naturally attracted visitors to the Valley during its first year of operation and the volunteers already record information about guests that visit.

“We take a daily record of everybody who walks in the gallery and that helps us to know where people are coming from,” Rackets said. “(The city) asked questions like ‘how many people do you expect to have?’ I can give a fairly definitive answer because we already had six months of detailed information about how far people were coming, how long they were staying, if they were staying the family and friends or hotels. We feel we already have experience doing what is needed and we are excited at the opportunity to do more of it.”

The $17,290 approved by the city council will help bring some stability to the ongoing operations of the gallery, Rackets said. The 12 members of the collective all split the cost of rent each month and share the workload by taking on different roles and volunteering at the gallery.

“The money will help relieve some of the burden the 12 of us carry,” she said. “It helps give us some sustainability for whatever period of time we have. We are the interim right now and this opportunity goes until December and we’ll see what they think going forward… We are thrilled with the opportunity it is a huge relief to us to know that we can make rent and that we are good for another year. We are all excited about it.”

The amount of LTAC funds approved for the gallery was determined by multiplying the total hours to be worked at the gallery by the state minimum wage of $11. Rackets said that with increased staffing on weekends during the summer, 1,515 staff hours would be needed. Additional money for signs, shelving, and equipment brought the final cost to $17,290.

Each year the city of Snoqualmie allocates funding accumulated from lodging taxes of various community organizations to promote tourism. The allocations were made in December, but the city had reserved $40,000 in funding for mid-year applications. The Art Gallery of SnoValley applied for a mid-year allocation for the visitor information services and was approved. The allocation brings the LTAC reserves down to about $23,000.

The gallery is preparing for opening day and has already ordered some equipment and begun work on a sign at the entrance to the gallery. Rackets said their current “Art Gallery” sign has increased their visibility and the amount of people who come in and that they are working on a similar sign for the visitor information center to hang from the awning above the sidewalk. They are also doing some volunteer training.

“We are doing training within our gallery for our collective members who are the volunteers,” she said. “Most of them live in the area. They have their own stories and experiences to draw from. They’ve eaten what’s being served here and have their own particular favorite spots to encourage people to try. We think we will all be well prepared to be able to answer questions the visitors will have and it just fits into our wheelhouse.”

The Art Gallery of SnoValley and visitor information center is located at 8130 Railroad Ave, Snoqualmie. For more information call (425) 213-9321 or visit www.artgalleryofsnovalley.com.