Lucy the Elephant Planning $5 Million Welcome Center, First Major Interior Restoration in 50 Years

MARGATE — After surviving nearly 145 years, a move to escape demolition and a multimillion-dollar exterior restoration, Lucy the Elephant is preparing for another major transformation.

Plans are moving forward for an approximately $5 million visitor welcome and interpretive center at the National Historic Landmark in Margate, while Lucy herself is preparing for her first major interior restoration in roughly half a century.

Richard Helfant, executive director and CEO of the Save Lucy Committee, described the upcoming work as the organization's “most ambitious thing yet” during an appearance on Off the Press with Scott Cronick on WOND, with Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz serving as guest host.

“We're going to be rebuilding Lucy's gift shop and interpretive center,” Helfant said. “We tore down the old building last spring because it had just fallen into a state of disrepair. It was no longer safe to be habitable.”

The gift shop is now temporarily operating across Atlantic Avenue while Lucy remains open for tours.

“We're operating the gift shop temporarily across the street at Washington and Atlantic avenues,” Helfant said. “It's what we call our little Elephant Macy's.”

Helfant said he hopes construction on the replacement building can begin before the end of 2026 or early in 2027.

“Hopefully, before the end of the year or certainly by the beginning of 2027, we'll break ground on a new state-of-the-art welcome center,” Helfant said.

A roughly $5 million project

Helfant did not give a price for the welcome center during the WOND interview, but earlier this year told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the project was expected to cost about $5 million, with funding likely coming through a state economic-development program.

The price has apparently increased as planning has progressed. Margate's 2024 six-year capital program listed the Lucy the Elephant Interpretative Center at $4 million, including $2.5 million under grants and other funding and nearly $1.5 million associated with the local unit.

Plans for a new center have been developing for several years. Margate's Planning Board heard a presentation from Helfant concerning the Lucy Park project in February 2023.

Lucy now says on its official website that its gift shop has moved across the street in preparation for construction of the Visitor Welcome & Interpretive Center.

The center will be much more than a replacement gift shop.

“It will incorporate a larger gift shop,” Helfant told Kurtz. “It will incorporate ADA-compliant restrooms.”

But Helfant said the centerpiece will be an interpretive area designed to address one of the inherent limitations of a 19th-century elephant-shaped building: Not everyone can climb Lucy's narrow spiral staircases.

“The most important part of it is we're going to have an interpretive center within the compound, so that people who can't climb her stairs will be able to tour her virtually on computers and be able to experience what you and I can experience by climbing her stairs,” Helfant said.

Helfant said accessibility is one of the driving principles behind the project.

“We want everybody to experience the magic of Lucy,” he said. “No boundaries there. We want it boundary-free, barrier-free. That's our goal, and we will accomplish that goal.”

“Before my time is done at Lucy,” Helfant added, “that building will be up and running.”

Lucy herself is getting another makeover

Construction of the center is expected to coincide with another major project — restoration of Lucy's interior.

“That will take about a year and a half to build,” Helfant said of the new center. “Coinciding with that will be the restoration of her interior, which we haven't touched in 50 years.”

The interior restoration is expected to cost between $800,000 and $1 million, according to Helfant's comments earlier this year. The project received a $350,000 federal grant for fiscal 2026, helping restore funding for work that had faced an earlier setback.

The work will include walls, floors, mechanical systems and fire-suppression components.

“Her air conditioning and heating system needs to be replaced,” Helfant told Kurtz. “The plaster walls need repair. The floors need to be refinished.”

The HVAC system is particularly overdue.

“The air conditioning and heating system were installed in the early 1970s,” Helfant said. “To say they're on their last legs would be an understatement. They're being held together with bubblegum and glue, and they're so energy inefficient.”

Solar power — and protection during outages

Helfant also disclosed details about the environmental and public-safety components of the new building.

“The new building will be a green building,” he said. “It will have solar panels on it. It will pretty much run on its own energy, and it will also power the elephant.”

Plans also call for a backup generator.

Helfant said that is important because Lucy's fire-suppression system relies on electrically powered pumps.

“If there's a power outage for any extended period of time, she doesn't have fire protection,” Helfant said. “In the plans, we're calling for a generator so that she'll have power no matter what.”

The upcoming work follows Lucy's $2.4 million exterior restoration, completed in late 2022. During that project, workers removed the landmark's deteriorated exterior metal skin, repaired underlying wood and installed new metal cladding. The New Jersey Historic Trust has provided multiple grants to Lucy over the decades, including awards of $673,668 in 2020 and $669,133 in 2022.

Helfant said the latest projects are about making sure the landmark survives — and remains accessible — well into the future.

“We have to keep her relevant and vital,” he said. “She has to stay healthy and strong for generations yet to come.”