By DAN TELVOCK
Museum of the Confederacy executive director Waite Rawls has his hands full in Appomattox, where he wants to begin his system of museums.
The negotiations in Appomattox have left Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County leaders a bit out of the loop. They said they haven't heard from Rawls in months.
The private Richmond museum has the world's largest collection of Civil War artifacts and is looking to have a location here as well.
Fredericksburg City Councilman Matt Kelly said a meeting with museum officials had been set, but was canceled when the city manager resigned.
"Everything's been relatively quiet," said Kelly, who is one of several Fredericksburg officials who discussed with Rawls the possibly of a museum in the city's historic Princess Anne Street courthouse.
"I know they are kind of heavy-duty into the Appomattox situation right now," Kelly said. "I know they are still looking at all the sites here, too. It's not just us."
With a recent request for a closed-door meeting with Appomattox County supervisors shot down, Rawls is left trying to make his vision fit on 4 acres near the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, where about 150,000 people visit a year.
Elected leaders in the town of Appomattox, east of Lynchburg, want to make a deal, and have negotiated with a landowner to buy the 4 acres for $325,000.
However, Appomattox County Supervisor Thomas Conrad told The Lynchburg News & Advance that the county is not interested in buying 4 additional acres Rawls says the museum needs. Efforts to reach Conrad for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.
To complicate matters, what was first announced as an 8,000-square-foot, $4 million museum has now turned into a larger $8 million facility.
Rawls announced in late 2007 that he wanted to have a museum near the Chancellorsville battlefield off State Route 3 in Spotsylvania.
But that proposal faced behind-the-scenes opposition from preservations who fought hard to get the Mullins Farm preserved. They didn't want someone to build on the historic land.
That's when Rawls turned his attention to Fredericksburg.
Around the same time, Spotsylvania developer W.J. Vakos made an offer to Rawls to build a museum at the under-construction Courthouse Village development of apartments, homes and stores near the State Route 208 bypass.
The Civil War Life Museum near the Spotsylvania visitor center at Massaponax also wants to relocate to the courthouse area.
Terry Thomann, the Civil War Life Museum's executive director, had said he was hoping to work with Rawls, but Rawls wasn't interested.
Supervisor Hap Connors said the last time he had a conversation with Rawls about a Spotsylvania museum was March 24, when Gov. Tim Kaine visited Slaughter Pen Farm off Tidewater Trail.
Rawls is seeking government and private financial support to move some of the artifacts in Richmond to sites in this region, Fort Monroe and Appomattox. He began considering moving the artifacts out of Richmond because of declining visitation as Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center has grown around the museum.
"We think the Vakos offer was a win-win situation," said Connors. "We remain open to discussing opportunities with [Rawls], and we are very excited about it, but the ball is in his court."
'We are still committed'
Paul Harvey, the mayor of the town of Appomattox, said he is hopeful that they can make the museum's plans a reality. Harvey said the town worked out an agreement with the landowner to pay for the land in installments. The town was then going to rent the space to the museum at less than market value.
"This is pretty big for us," Harvey said. "We are still committed to that even though the deal has not closed on the land."
He said the town got involved with Rawls' vision quickly because leaders believe the project will spur economic development.
The town had hopes the museum would attract a hotel and restaurant, thus diverting visitors heading to Lynchburg, 25 miles away. Plans were to break ground sometime this year and finish the museum in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011.
Appomattox deal first
Megan Stagg, the Museum of the Confederacy's spokeswoman, said yesterday that Rawls was in meetings and could not be interviewed.
"As of now, we are completely focused on getting the Appomattox deal closed out," she said.
Once that is set, she said Rawls wants to then focus on the Fredericksburg area, and then on Fort Monroe. She said the museum's fund-raising numbers won't be available until June 30.
"The whole point is we are trying to make a purchase of land, and it involved a lot of people, and we are just trying to get the best deal for everyone," Stagg said about the Appomattox negotiations.
Stagg said Rawls hopes to make an announcement in two weeks. "Everything is still going really well."
Dan Telvock: 540/374-5438
Email: dtelvock@freelancestar.com