The Woodlands Information Center has moved online after 42 years, leaving the building that formerly housed a variety of welcoming services and intricate small-scale maps of the township’s villages up for lease.

“I won’t say we didn’t have any traffic, but the traffic had slowed down, I think probably because a lot of people did a lot of investigation online before they came out to The Woodlands,” said Calleen McFerrin, manager and 33-year employee of the information center.

Tim Welbes, co-president of The Woodlands Development Company, said the decision to move the information center services online came after much deliberation and several discussions.

“We still want to serve the community,” Welbes said. “We’ve just gone digital.”

Although McFerrin agrees that moving the information center’s resources online was best for the company, she said she hates to see the loss of personal attention visitors and residents would receive from the employees at the facility.

“I think it was an integral part of The Woodlands in the beginning years and it played a good part in the role of helping sell The Woodlands, but I think it’s time to move on now,” she said.

Welbes said the center’s services were and continue to be primarily used as a way for residents to get plugged into the community, whether it is searching for a home, finding neighbors and friends or locating places to shop and dine.

Realtors could use the facility as a means to get in contact with people searching for homes in The Woodlands, Welbes said. However, in the digital age and with the amount of build-out The Woodlands has seen, fewer people have set foot in the information center in recent years.

Welbes said there are no definite plans for the building as of now.

Online information about The Woodlands can be found at www.thewoodlands.com.