New Adventure Center opening this fall in Boulder City

When thousands of workers poured into Black Canyon every day in the 1930s to build Hoover Dam, it’s hard to say they had a vision of the recreation hub they were helping create.

Nearly 100 years later, Boulder City is a launchpad for explorers: kayakers and fishermen along Lake Mead, mountain bikers in the River Mountains, climbers in Keyhole Canyon south of the town, hikers through historic railroad trails.

Though Lake Mead National Recreation Area saw a slight decline in visitation in 2025, it still counted more than 6.1 million visitors and ranked as the 10th-most visited of NPS’ 433 sites in 2025. And, to get to the most popular areas of the park, one must pass through Boulder City.

Nevada adventures

To enhance visitor experience, a new Adventure Center is being built next door to Boulder City’s Chamber of Commerce, 100 Nevada Way, to serve those adventurers. On Oct. 7, Boulder City will become home to one of two such centers planned in partnership with Travel Nevada. The other, to be constructed in Carson City, is slated to open in early 2027.

Both centers were funded by an Economic Development Administration grant totaling $7 million.

At a tour of the under-construction building on Wednesday, Travel Nevada CEO Rafael Villanueva said outdoor recreation is the No. 2 driver of Nevada’s gross domestic product, surpassing mining, and supporting 75,000 jobs throughout the state. He and Boulder City Chamber CEO Jill Rowland-Lagan see the center — a federal, state and local collaboration — as a path to encourage visitors to extend their trips.

“We’re not trying to take away from the Vegas experience; we’re trying to amplify and intensify it by having them find a little bit more here in Southern Nevada that they can fall in love with,” Rowland-Lagan said. “And so then that way, because their experience was so great this time, next time that they come, they’ll plan to stay a little bit longer, and they’ll adventure into the center of the state a little bit further.”

A recreation hub

The center works like this: It will host 14 vendors and local tour companies, each with its own office and walk-up window. Half of the center is claimed, said Rowland-Lagan, by e-bike tours (including a local startup called Canyon Riders), helicopter tours, a Grand Canyon tour company, a UFO/haunted tour, and businesses revolving around Lake Mead recreation. The center will also be ADA-accessible.

Villanueva said a key selling point for visitors is the transportation system built into the center’s operations. Currently, tour operators are responsible for their own pickup and maintain relationships along the Las Vegas Strip. The center will have its own shuttle system, saving the operator on gas and a tourist on rental fees, and meet the tour at the center. Along with that route, Boulder City will have a shuttle that loops around town for visitors to further explore.

“They will pick up guests for all of the operators. They will bring them out, drop them off right here in the parking lot. They’ll go to the different windows, they’ll sign waivers, they’ll do whatever safety briefings they might have. If there’s retail that they can purchase sunscreen, maybe a life jacket, something along those lines, they’ll do that here as well,” Rowland-Lagan explained.

With an additional grant, they hope to add one more element that would turn Chamber Hill, the hill behind the center, into a dark skies-astrotourism platform.

The center is a win-win, Villanueva said, benefiting tourists and the town.

“We’re setting a substantial amount of budget to make sure we get people here and get people not to just stop by, but to take a tour to spend hours in Boulder City and the surrounding areas, and yeah, we can’t wait. It’s going to be really cool,” he said.