1736 Magazine - Vision for the Future

The old Academy of Richmond County building on Telfair Street could be the site for a Georgia Museum of Military History.
[MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
without it.”
The top floor of the larger synagogue
building will serve as a smallerscale
event space similar to the larger
Sacred Heart Cultural Center, another
local rehabilitated house of worship,
“and will be set up just like the synagogue
was in 1869,” he said.
“It’s taken an enormous amount of
work from everybody. I’m very proud
of what we've done so far,” Weinstein
said.
Other museum projects are at different
stages. A James Brown wing for
the Augusta Museum of History, or a
wing highlighting several local entertainment
personalities, has been discussed
at varying levels since at least
2008. Even with its most recent denial
of SPLOST funding, the proposed
project is unlikely to be abandoned.
Thompson is still advocating for a
Georgia Museum of Military History.
He said in late January that he
still is meeting with commissioners
to discuss options for advancing that
project.
“We were of course surprised to
hear that our proposal will not be
included on SPLOST,” he said. “We
were always going to raise funds
outside of our stand-up budget, so
nothing has changed in regards to our
board of directors and current commitments.”
District 2 Commissioner Dennis
Williams has ‘committed' to help find
public funds for the military museum,
and District 4 Commissioner Sammie
Sias, a retired U.S. Army command
sergeant major, has expressed interest
after a “very positive phone meeting,”
according to Thompson.
“We are very optimistic that we
can find more partners to collaborate
on securing funds for realizing the
enormous potential of our proposed
museum,” Thompson said.
Clarke said he and others are looking
into the possibility of using unspent
or unclaimed funds from previous
completed SPLOST projects to further
an Augusta cultural corridor.
“That money can be re-designated.
So there are a couple of us looking
at that, exploring that avenue,”
he said.
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