The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania has set 10 a.m. June 12 for the opening ribbon-cutting of its new Babcock Nature Center at the Monroe Road trailhead of the Butler-Freeport Community Trail in Buffalo Township.

BUFFALO TWP — The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania has set 10 a.m. June 12 for the ribbon-cutting to celebrate the opening of its new Babcock Nature Center.

The culmination of four years of planning, the $1.5 million building is at the Monroe Road trailhead of the Butler-Freeport Community Trail.

The center is the result of a collaboration between the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania and Buffalo Township.

Jim Bonner, executive director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, said Buffalo Township owns the six-acre site, and the Audubon Society developed and will manage the center.

Money for the project came from a variety of sources, including the Babcock Charitable Trust for which the center is named, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Grable Foundation and the state departments of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Community and Economic Development.

Bonner said site preparation — road and stormwater work — began in August.

Work on the 3,000-square-foot building and its adjacent 1,200-square-foot pavilion began in November with the demolishing of the old Oregon Hunting and Fishing Club, which stood on the site.

The nature center has classrooms, a meeting space, a retail store, restrooms and visitor amenities, concessions and an outdoor nature play area for children, Bonner said.

“The pavilion is for casual use by people on the Butler-Freeport Community Trail,” he said. “We built a path that is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compatible from the parking area to the trail.”

The Audubon Society worked closely with the Butler-Freeport Community Trail Association on the center project.

Bonner said the Freeport Area School District property abuts Little Buffalo Creek, so he hopes to stage in-school and remote educational programs at the nature center for Freeport students.

Bonner said the society is interviewing for three full-time center employees.

Center construction was done by Tomlyn Construction of Pittsburgh, which renovated the T.W. Phillips Barn at Succop Nature Park in Penn Township.

Chris Ziegler, president of the Butler-Freeport Community Trail Association, said she welcomes what the new nature center will bring to the 21-mile trail.

“With COVID last year, we did a trail count, counting the number of users,” Ziegler said. “There was a 350% increase between 2019 and 2020.

“We're happy for the new neighbors. The center will help people get on the trail,” she said.

The center's opening is great just from a parking and restroom standpoint, she added.

“It will provide additional amenities on the trail that we didn't have on the southern end that we had on the northern end,” Ziegler said.

The center's nature programming will be a huge enhancement to the trail, she said.