Saturday, July 26, 2014 6:45 am
The week ended with a bang for Waynesboro residents, as officials from the Virginia Museum of Natural History announced they hit the fundraising goal. And so, the city took another step toward becoming the home for a satellite location of the Martinsville-based museum. It’s great news and everyone who worked on this project, from Economic Development Director Greg Hitchens to officials from Waynesboro Downtown Development Incorporated, the Center for Coldwaters Restoration and those in between, should be applauded for their hard work. Now we as a city need to make sure all that effort wasn’t for nothing.
We as residents need to show up to the workshops coming this fall, to express what we want to see in the museum. This opportunity doesn’t happen often, to be able to help shape what a multi-million dollar project will look like, so it’s time we take advantage of this. What exhibits will best help local science teachers educate their classes? As a student, what is something you would like to see? For parents, what would you like to see included, to help for educational family trips? If no one shows up at the workshops, then there shouldn’t be any complaining about what the final design looks like, because it wasn’t important enough to get involved.
Also, we need to look at what this means for us as a city. Discussions over parking spaces or the lack thereof in some spots have already started in city council meetings. When the site is selected for the museum, we need to make sure there’s enough parking for people to drive not just to the facility itself, but also to other local venues around it. If that site is the one discussed at Constitution Park, then it really becomes an issue and possibly the perfect time to consider building a parking deck in that area of downtown.
Then once the plan is in place, we have to work to promote this. Officials from the Blue Ridge Parkway have agreed to help with marketing, informing hikers and those who pass by of the museum that will be in Waynesboro at that point. Word of mouth can be a powerful thing. We at the paper can write articles and inform people that the facility is on the way, but there’s always people beyond what we can reach. Maybe that includes relatives in Northern Virginia or an elementary school class in Nelson County. Individually, we can make this project a success, by letting people know it’s coming.
Now yes, there will be more fundraising on the horizon and there will come a point when Joe Keiper, the museum’s executive director, will ask people to donate more. Currently, it would cost around $7 million to get this built. If an existing building is used, that number drops a bit, but it will still need private dollars to cross the finish line. This is also not a short term effort. It’s highly unlikely we’ll be talking about a groundbreaking at this point next year. But projects like this are worth the effort and the wait involved. Bringing a multi-million dollar museum into the city can be a major shot in the arm to our economy. One of the major hurdles has been cleared. Now it’s up to us, each in our own ways, to guarantee it succeeds. Thursday’s announcement was a great milestone to hit, but we can’t start thinking it was the finish line.