From IN editor Duwayne Escobedo:
Lacey Collier on Gov. Charlie Crist veto of $2.5 million for environmental cleanup of Community Maritime Park: “I’m going to voice my displeasure with the governor at the voting booth. I’ll leave it up to you to do the same.”
Says UWF President John Cavanaugh at CMPA board meeting after presenting the concept for the Maritime Museum: “The veto is certainly disappointing. The committee wil have to see how it wants to proceed without support for the environmental surveys.”
Cavanaugh, museum designer Doug Mund and Nancy Fetterman, wife of the late Vice. Adm. Jack Fetterman, who spearheaded the Maritime Museum project, unveiled concepts for the 50,000-square-foot facility today.The plan is for a three-story building that’s glassed in and rises three stories high/45-feet on the west side of the building looking out on Pensacola Bay. It would include a 125,000 gallon, three-story high aquarium, a restaurant filled with Trader Jon memorabilia, an interactive theater, an Admiral’s Bridge near Fetterman’s library where people can lookout the glass side at the bay and exhibit space. In addition, the anchor from a ship from DeLuna’s fleet, which landed in Pensacola in the 16th Century, will be moved to the Maritime Museum.
Exhibits will include history, culture and science of hurricanes, navigation, shipwrecks and bay and gulf’s eco-system, for example.
Says Nancy Fetterman: “We’re all very frustrated at how long it’s taking but we want to do it right and I think we are. We have a story to tell that covers 450 years.”
Adds Collier about project’s concept: “I always evaluate places myself when you walk in if it makes you say, “Wow!” I think we have a double wow here.”