Hoover Dam Quietly Opens Visitors Center : Landmarks: Construction delays and controversial cost overruns dampen the Bureau of Reclamation’s satisfaction with finishing the project.

A sleek new visitors center at the Hoover Dam opened its doors to the public Wednesday, but no official celebration marked the long-awaited event.

Long construction delays and controversial cost overruns now estimated at $91 million have dampened the Bureau of Reclamation’s satisfaction with finishing the project. “We’re just wanting to quietly transition to use of the facility,” said Jack Delp, the agency’s construction engineer.

On an average day, as many as 3,000 visitors crowd the sidewalks along U.S. 93, enduring the harsh glare of the Nevada sun while they wait to tour the inside of the historic dam.

As of Wednesday, sightseers can now park inside the new five-story garage built into the canyon wall and ride an escalator down to a highway underpass that leads to an air-conditioned reception hall. From there, visitors can either climb aboard a high-speed elevator that will whisk them down through 530 feet to the base of the dam or take stairs to an observation deck.

During the next year and a half, officials expect to wrap up construction on an exhibit hall and an art gallery with original paintings by American artists such as Norman Rockwell. A three-part revolving theater is partly finished; for now, visitors can sit in one section and watch a film that explains how the dam was constructed.

The complex, built of rose-colored concrete with tinted glass paneling, copper roofing and brass Art Deco railings, was intended to keep tourists off the crowded interstate highway that crosses the top of the dam.

Those who opposed the plan to build the center sarcastically refer to the complex as the “Taj Mahal” and “Disneyland in the desert.” The most vocal critics have been the small rural power customers who get most of their resources from Hoover Dam, but will see no pay-back in services or tourism revenues.

“We’re 65 miles out in the desert, we won’t see any of those tourist dollars,” said Kent Bloomfield of Overton Power Co., who added that responsibility for the project was like “a Ping-Pong ball bouncing around through the halls of the Bureau of Reclamation.”

Financed over 50 years, the new visitors’ center could end up costing residents in California, Nevada and Arizona more than $435.5 million, according to Bloomfield.

“There is a lot of truth in those criticisms,” said Bob Walsh, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation. But he points out that the original 1983 appraisal of $32 million for the project should never have been considered an actual estimate.

The design changed several times and several factors conspired to raise the project’s expenses, including the presence of dangerous high-voltage overhead power lines, the continuous flow of tourists, the heavy interstate traffic and the perilously steep and rugged terrain.

As for the final bill, “our estimates show that the power rates will go up anywhere from a penny to 87 cents per month per customer depending upon how much power you get from Hoover Dam,” Walsh said. “But we’ve made a commitment to our power customers that we will try to generate enough money from the visitor program here to repay some of the construction costs.”

Officials will begin charging fees for special events, such as weddings, conventions and banquets, and the entrance fee to the dam will increase from $3 to $5 per adult.