Whether you’re a vacationer, traveling business person, or a truck driver, welcome centers are a great place to stop for assistance on travel information, brochures about sites throughout the state, souvenirs, to “stretch your legs,” use the restroom or get some sleep before continuing your journey.
Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama
If you’ve ever visited one of the eight welcome centers in the state of Alabama, you have been greeted with the words “Welcome to Alabama!”
The centers are staffed with employees from the Department of Tourism. The number of tourism representatives depends on the traffic received at the welcome center.
The Grand Bay location has seven representatives because the building is large and hundreds of people visit it per day. The representatives are here to help assist travelers and Alabama residents, make a stop sure to say hi!
Design
After two years of construction, the Grand Bay Welcome Center features additional parking, refined ADA accessibility, a security station, several lighting upgrades, outdoor picnic areas, and an improvement to the Alabama Tourism lobby.
The welcome center is 17,370 square feet with 14,500 square feet of public space, which can accommodate a maximum number of 1,480 people. The glass windows are designed to handle winds up to 150 mph. There is a backup generator on-site that will power the building up for approximately one month.
The Grand Bay Welcome Center is designed to incorporate coastal features to the Alabama Gulf Coast including brick carvings and bronze sea creature statues. Throughout the welcome center, you will see displays of original art crafted and designed by artists across the United States.
Lucy Gafford from Mobile, AL designed the oyster shell. Sue Labderman from Virginia craved the brick carvings. The turtle outside was sculpted by Jim Swain from Myrtle Beach, SC. The statues in front of the building were made by the American Bronze Foundry from Sandford, FL. The flooring was installed by D&T Tile and Terrazzo from Mandeville, LA. Barry Robinson was the architect for this building, and construction began in May 2014 and completed in two years.
Safe Haven for Alabama Residents and Visitors
The Grand Bay Welcome Center on the Alabama/Mississippi line can be a haven for Alabama residents and visitors during hurricane season and other climatic events.
The old Grand Bay Welcome Center was built in the early 1970s, and over time the building suffered extensive damage due to hurricanes. The new welcome center has modern hurricane protection and was designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and be a staging location for emergency response personnel.
Popular Items Found in the Welcome Center
Travelers and brochure collectors enjoy stopping by welcome centers to grab brochures and publications. These products bring the reader up to speed on new regional and state information.
You can find two Coast360 publications—the coupon book and the vacation guide—at the Grand Bay Welcome Center, along with many other publications.
The Grand Bay Welcome Center is open to the public, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5pm., excluding ATD holidays. The public restrooms are open to the public 24 hours a day.