Facility aims to educate, provide access to Susquehanna

(Wrightsville) — Improvement work has begun on a facility that aims to improve access to the Susquehanna River while educating visitors.

The Zimmerman Center for Heritage south of Wrightsville in York County is home to the offices of the Susquehanna Gateway Heritage Area.

More than $1 million of exterior construction work will add special walkways, a rain garden, a floating dock and other improvements to the riverside property.

Heritage area president Mark Platts says the work will be completed by late November and allow visitors to launch boats and better access information at the group’s headquarters.

“The Susquehanna has really sort of been rediscovered by a lot of folks in the last decade or so,” Platts says. “There’s a lot of attention being focused on it for conservation and water quality and outdoor recreation, but there’s limited access to it.”

Platts says his organization would ideally like to see several similar sites on both the York and Lancaster county sides of the river.

He says a network of locations explaining the history and ecology of the Susquehanna would help draw tourists to the area.