Historic St. Mary’s City Commission seeks design funds for visitor center conversion, warns of backlog that could affect 400th anniversary

Dr. John Seidel, executive director of the Historic St. Mary's City Commission, told the Capital Budget Subcommittee on behalf of the commission that the agency supports the governor’s capital budget and the analyst’s recommendations and asked for design funds to convert the existing visitor center.

The commission requests $381,000 in fiscal 2026 to begin planning to convert the current visitor center and an adjacent storage facility into an education and artisan center with flexible programming spaces, staff offices, storage and additional restrooms. "We're really grateful for those design funds and eager to move forward," Seidel said.

The funding request is part of a multi-project Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for the park. The Maryland Department of Legislative Services (DLS) analyst reported that four projects are listed in the commission’s CIP but only the visitor-center conversion receives funding in FY26; most planned funding is from general obligation (G.O.) bonds and the commission receives supplementary support from the Historic St. Mary’s City Foundation.

Commission and DLS officials described progress and remaining backlog on site improvements. Seidel said the commission has recently completed about $2.2 million in projects and has another $1.7 million scheduled for completion in the next few months, listing a chapel exhibit, restaurant work, slave-quarter renovations and bathrooms. He added that a $500,000 Americans with Disabilities Act–accessible pier is under winter construction and expected to be finished by June. "That's a backlog of about $4,400,000 in site improvements that are now either complete or very rapidly nearing completion," Seidel said.

DLS noted the site improvements project received $2.0 million in FY25 and receives no G.O. bond funding in FY26 because a high unencumbered balance remains; DLS recommended adopting narrative language requiring a report that details encumbrances and expenditures for site improvements, with separate accounting for projects funded by G.O. bonds.

Seidel warned that excluding site-improvement funds in FY26 could slow preparations for Maryland’s 400th anniversary of founding in 2034 if funding is not resumed. He also underscored the commission’s need for climate-controlled collections storage, telling the committee that the current facility is expected to reach capacity in calendar 2028 and that the commission projects jeopardy to museum accreditation and federal funding if adequate storage is unavailable.

Other CIP items discussed included a new collection storage and maintenance facility with start of funding planned in FY27 and the Leonard Calvert House exhibit, which has archaeological work underway and is expected to begin receiving G.O. bond funding in FY28. The total estimated cost for the visitor-center conversion was reported as just under $15,000,000 and construction would be scheduled in FY28–FY29 following design in FY26.

The commission said it will provide the December 2025 report on encumbrances and expenditures requested by DLS and looks forward to working with state partners on remaining projects. The subcommittee did not take a formal vote during the presentation.

The commission emphasized the scale of the site and the time pressure of capital planning: Seidel noted the property includes hundreds of archaeological sites, reconstructed buildings and 2.5 miles of river frontage and said, "9 years in terms of capital planning and execution is a very, very short and it's a rapidly narrowing window."