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Making history is one thing. Re-creating it is another.

In what amounts to a keen disappointment for the Greensboro Historical Museum staff, a major renovation of exhibit space, financed by $5.3 million in bond money and $1.6 million in private funds, won't be ready in Greensboro's bicentennial year in 2008.

It will be sometime in 2010 before the exhibit space opens.

"We were overly optimistic in trying to support the bicentennial with this exhibit," museum Director Fred Goss said.

He said the museum will still be a main player in the bicentennial. It will sponsor various programs, including helping to produce a play about Greensboro's history.

The renovation involves 8,000 square feet of space in the 1892 wing of the museum. Until 1927, the wing was First Presbyterian Church.

The space would tell Greensboro's story in a chronological and thematic way. It would do so through modern techniques, such as computer kiosks. The redesign also would use artifacts the museum has long owned but has not had public space to display.

A delayed renovation is better than no renovation, which was almost the case.

Voters approved the $5.3 million in bonds in 2006 by only 169 out of 52,587 votes cast.

After that, Goss said, the project got off to a bad start when the original exhibit designer, Gaines Brown Design of Charlotte, backed out.

A new designer had to be found, Eisterhold Associates of Kansas City. Eisterhold is also the designer for the under-construction International Civil Rights Museum in the old Woolworth Building on South Elm Street. It has done work for the Rosa Parks Museum and Children's Wing, Jurassic Park Discovery Center and Harry Truman Presidential Museum.

Goss referred questions about why Gaines Brown departed to his boss, Sandy Neerman, who is over the public library system and the museum.
"The designer assessed the project and decided he would be unable to fabricate it," she said.

A telephone call and an e-mail to the Charlotte firm were not returned Friday.

Neerman said the staff pushed hard to get the project "started right out of the gate." She said that planning began in January 2007, two months after the bond approval.

The museum staff said it realizes the public may wonder why renovating an existing space would take so long.

Goss said the project is more than just rearranging space. The section of the building that will house the new exhibits is worn out after 105 years of one use or another.

About $1.6 million of the bond money will go for repairing the building's slate roof, replacing 26 large windows, upgrading the building to meet fire code standards and installing a better security system.

Goss said the roof, window and other infrastructure work must be completed -- he expects that work to start in early 2008 -- before the exhibit space redesign can begin.

He said no one should want an exhibit space thrown together in a hurry.

"You endeavor to have it professionally executed and that's what we are doing now," he said. "This is what the community expects. They want a more inclusive, diverse experience of Greensboro's history."

Neerman agreed. "You are talking about a building that is historic, and we have certain standards we have to meet," she said. "We want to do it right. It's going to be a project people will enjoy for many, many years."

Still, she said, having it ready for the bicentennial would have been ideal.
"Fred and I were excited and we had expectations,'' Neerman said. "It's something we really wanted to happen."

Contact Jim Schlosser at 373-7081 or jschlosser@news-record.com