At a recent Branson Board of Aldermen meeting, the Board unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the transfer of $240,000 from the Tourism Fund to Capital Projects Expense Fund. This transfer will finance the cost of the road and utility infrastructure for the expansion of the city of Branson’s Branson Lakeside RV Park at 300 South Box Car Willie Drive, immediately south of the Branson Landing on the shores of Lake Taneycomo.
The Staff Report for the Resolution said, “Seventy-five percent of the tourism tax collected pursuant to the Branson Tourism Tax provided by §94.800 et seq. shall be used for constructing and maintaining infrastructure improvements. The proposed campground expansion is a key development aimed at enhancing our community’s appeal to tourists. The funds will be used for construction of infrastructure improvements to the new campgrounds for roads and utilities.
In a May article in this paper, Branson Parks & Recreation Director Cindy Shook said that construction is well underway and, absent weather and unforeseen circumstance delays, anticipates that the $1.2 million expansion will “officially open” in the spring of 2025. The staff report for resolution indicates that the “cash funding” of the $240,000 transfer is not in addition to the $1.2 million but will be subtracted from it reducing the total amount of debt the expansion will incur.
Alderman Marshall Howden, who serves on the city’s Park’s Board said, he’s “Super excited about the expansion” and “Our campground has so many aspects to it that make it an incredible facility.” He points out that the campground is “really is a business that the city operates and said that the Parks Board knows how crucial that is to the budget of the city’s Park Department.
The May article also reports that Shook said she was “excited about the expansion because of the enhanced experience it will provide campers and the increased revenue it will bring to the city. She says that the Park operates profitably, and its profits support the city’s parks and recreation programs. Without that revenue, more funding would have to come from the city’s General Fund and increased user fees for the city’s parks and recreation programs.”
Shook said that the expansion will have 31 spaces of which 226 will be “pull throughs” and all of which will have a lake view of some sort. They are new, larger sites with a 16-foot separation, a paved patio, a picnic table and an individual firepit. These premium sites will all have the expected individual amenities and their own showers and restrooms and will have access to all the other amenities of the Branson Lakeside RV Park including access to the park’s other amenities such as free trolley, off-leash dog park, laundry facility, on-site marina, fishing docks, boat launching ramp, picnic shelter/pavilion/community fire pit, camp store, LP gas fill station, and more.
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