I guess it should come as no surprise that expansion of the Greensboro Historical Museum, financed with a $5 million bond, is not progressing as planned:
“We were overly optimistic in trying to support the bicentennial with this exhibit,” museum Director Fred Goss said.
…the project got off to a bad start when the original exhibit designer, Gaines Brown Design of Charlotte, backed out.
A new designer had to be found, Eisterhold Associates of Kansas City. Eisterhold is also the designer for the under-construction International Civil Rights Museum in the old Woolworth Building on South Elm Street. It has done work for the Rosa Parks Museum and Children’s Wing, Jurassic Park Discovery Center and Harry Truman Presidential Museum.
Goss referred questions about why Gaines Brown departed to his boss, Sandy Neerman, who is over the public library system and the museum.
“The designer assessed the project and decided he would be unable to fabricate it,” she said.
Neerman said the staff pushed hard to get the project “started right out of the gate.” She said that planning began in January 2007, two months after the bond approval.
The museum staff said it realizes the public may wonder why renovating an existing space would take so long.
Put it this way: We’ve seen what’s going on down the street at February One Place and Elm Street. But though we’re used to such projects not uh, getting right out of the gate, it doesn’t stop the publis from wondering what’s going on with the International Civil Rights Museum.
On that subject, there were some pretty incredible things said during last Tuesday’s City Council discussion on $750,000 in federal block grants for the museum.
For anyone who’s curious, outgoing Mayor Keith Holliday stated the project’s total cost at $17 million, adding that its completion was at the top of Action Greensboro’s wish list.
But council member Mike Barber also had some choice words for the project:
The city’s voted twice not to fund this project and doesn’t want to delay other projects to fund this project…
The city does not have faith in the people that manage this project and have access to the money.This is not an issue about race. This is an issue about incompetence, ineptitude, and insincere purpose.
But here’s what really got me. After outgoing council member Tom Phillips protested the use of federal money for the civil rights museum before the Willow Oaks project was complete, Holliday reminded everyone that plenty of money had already been put into Willow Oaks. Like $75 million. And it’s still not done. Neither is Old Asheboro, Phillips pointed out, and there are funding issues there, too. Wonder if there’s any faith in the people managing those projects.
Future prospects for fundraising don’t appear to be very bright due to the project’s extended timetable. Barber pointed out that several other high-profile civil rights museums have opened in the 16 years since plans for Greensboro’s museum were laid. Something else to think about, Barber added, is that the civil rights movement isn’t such a hot-button issue, considering we’re now 47 years down the road from the sit-ins.
Phillips put it more bluntly when he said museum planners had “a window of opportunity that they’ve totally wasted.” By the same token, if the museum could be completed in time for the 50th anniversary of the sit-ins, I have top believe it would generate considerable interest on a national level. But what are the chances of that happening?
