JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) - Architects armed with renderings, and historians with dreams made their way Wednesday to the Jim Moss Center for Nursing at Jackson State Community College to discuss plans for the new Tennessee Museum, scheduled to open by the third quarter of 2018.
"This project is 35 years in the making," said Gary Everton of EOA Architects in Nashville. "This is a very large, very complicated task (but) the true believer knows it's time for a new home."
Everton said the 137,000 square foot facility, which will be located at Rosa Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street is northwest of the state capitol, next to the Bicentennial Mall.
Gov. Bill Haslam and the Tennessee General Assembly appropriated $120 million for the museum with $40 million arriving in private funding.
"The museum was originally housed in the War Memorial Building," Everton said. "It moved to the James K. Polk Building in 1981, where it hosts 115,000 visitors annually."
Everton said the new museum is expected to host more than 220,000 visitors annually.
The new facility will be part museum, part virtual-reality experience, and part time machine. Viewed as the state's museum, it will serve as a hub to virtually connect schools and museums for programming and events - where admission is free.
"This is like air in state parks," said Lois Riggins-Ezzell, executive director of the museum. "There is so much emotion in history; so much to learn what we did right and what we did wrong. We're building this for the people of Tennessee - not just the school children."
Justin McClenahan, an architect with Gallagher & Associates in Washington, D.C., said the museum will have two floors, with each section of the state represented.
"The Forge of American Democracy - settlers and Tennessee becoming a state; the Civil War and Reconstruction; Tennessee Traditions (music) and the not-contemporary Modern Age, will be on the first floor," McClenahan said. "Items including geology and fossils - or Beginnings - will be displayed on the second floor."
Jackson resident Harbert Alexander is one of six members on the Douglas Henry State Museum Commission, created with a primary function to oversee the operations of the museum.
"This will be great for all of Tennessee, but it will attract visitors from our surrounding states: Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi," Alexander said. "It will increase our historical and cultural prominence, but the greatest thing about the museum is what it will mean to the younger children."