News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Burgess Falls State Park will undergo a series of improvements including an all-new visitors center and an aviary.
Park Manager Nathaniel Garrison said the goal of the project is to expand the park’s infrastructure while improving the visitor experience. Garrison said the plan includes an expanded gift shop, interpretive area, additional office space, and a meeting room.
“We’ve progressed quite a bit around here,” Garrison said. “And Burgess Falls is up to 304 acres and we also manage Window Cliffs State Natural Area. So there’s just a lot more stuff going on and a lot more people moving around, in and out of this area. So it just became to the point to where we needed to have a capital investment into Burgess Falls State Park.”
Garrison said demolition will start on the park’s current buildings mid month. He said they will be using one of their parking lots as a staging area for equipment and materials so parking will be challenging for guests until the project is finished.
Garrison said they hope to have the new facilities completed early in 2026.
“Parking is already really tight around here on the weekends and we know it’s going to be an inconvenience to folks,” Garrison said. “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do to try and, you know, mitigate some of that in the future and get this new building up and running.”
Garrison said they will also be building a two-bay aviary with an enclosed medical room for the birds of prey that rangers care for at the park.
“We house educational birds here,” Garrison said. “Birds of pray that are not suitable for release out into the natural environment. In the history that I’ve been working with birds of prey, they’ve all been hit by vehicles unfortunately, or stuck in fences.”
Garrison said they will be able to include additional parking spaces and EV chargers as part of the expansion.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to preserve and protect these areas and then also to share it to the community at large,” Garrison said. “You know, it could be (for) folks from Tennessee but I was speaking with some folks from France just last weekend.”
Garrison said the park rangers will move into their new maintenance facility in the next couple weeks and operate out of that until the visitor center is complete.
