By Casey Preston, Staff Writer of Hometown News | Read Original Article

For more than a decade, the Marine Discovery Center has offered the community boat tours, kayak rentals, summer camps, marine exhibits, and education programs. Now, they can add one more thing to that list: a permanent home.

After years spent working out of two trailers on the North Causeway, the non-profit organization recently moved into a large building at 520 Barracuda Blvd., on the site of the old New Smyrna Beach High School.

Although tanks and displays are under construction until winter, the center has opened its new doors to ticket sales for its popular kayak and boat tours, which will remain at the old location.

“We couldn’t wait to move in,” said Chad Truxall, the center’s director of education. “There’s just so much room for us to expand, it’s incredible.”

While the old Marine Discovery Center facility housed one classroom and a small gift shop, the new location will feature a front exhibit and reception area, multiple offices, two spacious classrooms, and a wide-spanning patio and backyard area.

Suffice to say, for staff, that is plenty of reason for excitement.

“This classroom is bigger than the two trailers put together,” lead instructor Mark Spradley said during a tour of the new building.

While the old property featured one touch tank that was often inaccessible to the public due to scheduled education classes, the new facility will feature tanks in at least two rooms.

“Now we’ll have something for everybody,” Mr. Spradley said with a smile.

The organization will share its new home, formerly the high school administration building, with The Artists’ Workshop, a 250-member non-profit group that provides art studios, classes, and exhibits to the community.

The entire property is owned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and will eventually become the Mosquito Lagoon Enhancement Center, an eco-tourism facility that will include classrooms, a fish hatchery, a boat ramp, boardwalks, and kayak launches.

The Wildlife Foundation of Florida, a branch of the commission, will run the operation and is housed in a larger building once designated for classrooms.

Although phase one of the project – getting the Marine Discovery Center and The Artists’ Workshop moved in – will be completed within 30 days, there are still about five to seven years to go before the center is complete. Brett Boston, executive director of The Wildlife Foundation of Florida, said the lengthy timeline is due to the many ideas about what to include at the center and financial restrictions.

“There is a laundry list of things people want done,” Mr. Boston said. “Everybody is throwing stuff at the wall, now we need to narrow that down and prioritize it.”

Only two weeks into their move, the Marine Discovery Center staff is already envisioning a bright future for their new home, including expansions on kayaking and fishing programs as well as the introduction of new programs, including standup paddle boarding and archery.

“The whole concept is to make this one big eco-center,” said Mr. Truxall, who is a former marine biology teacher at New Smyrna Beach High School. “I think people are going to be really proud of this.”

The new facility will also offer expanded educational experiences for children, including audio/visual projectors, lectures, and additional touch tanks.

“This place is important for people of all ages, but especially children,” Mr. Truxall said.

In a city primarily known for its beach, it is not uncommon for other bodies of water to go overlooked, which is one reason the programs and tours they offer are so important, Mr. Truxall said.

“A lot of people, especially tourists, don’t realize how special Mosquito Lagoon is,” he said. “This center provides an opportunity to focus on educating people on it, and that’s awesome.”

Although Mr. Truxall believes the new location has “phenomenal” potential, it does present some issues, he said. The property does not have a natural slope to shoreline, which means there are no access areas to the water. The center is in the process of applying for grants that will fund the construction of a kayak launch area at the new site. In the meantime, kayak tours will continue to launch from their existing North Causeway dock.

While the kayak tours will change locations eventually, the center’s popular EcoTours will remain at the present dock, which is deeded to the center for the next 30 years, Mr. Spradley said.

The grand opening of the center, which is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 2012, will feature multiple touch tanks housing horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs, large snails, conchs, sea urchins, and other sea critters.

The event will also include the unveiling of a shark exhibit that will contain examples of the skin, jaw, and teeth of several types of sharks, including black-tips, spinner sharks, sandbar sharks, and others that help New Smyrna Beach earn its title of Shark Bite Capital of the World.

Prior to the grand opening, a Hawaiian luau and silent auction will be hosted by Flip Flops at 725 Third Avenue from 6 to 9 p.m. on Oct. 9 with proceeds to benefit the Marine Discovery Center. The event will feature live music from Patrick Sammy on steel drums and a $30 ticket includes a six-course Hawaiian buffet, including a traditional pig roast and coconut pineapple char-grilled shrimp.

“It’s probably our best, most fun fundraiser of the year,” Mr. Spradley said. “I encourage everyone to come out.”