City Council votes in favor of signing agreement to renovate Maury School

By ELIZABETH PEZZULLO

Date published: 8/13/2003

Fredericksburg City Councilman Scott Howson beamed last night as the city inched its way forward with a plan to renovate the long-closed Maury School.

"This is the next step to create a facility in downtown Fredericksburg that has been much needed for a very long time," said Howson at last night's city council meeting. "And this will put back to use a valuable building that's been sitting [empty] for a very, very long time."

The council voted unanimously to authorize Mayor Bill Beck to sign a memorandum of understanding with Mary Washington College and George Washington's Fredericksburg Foundation on a collabora

tive plan for reusing the building that has mostly sat empty since closing in 1980.

Since 1989, Howson said, he has worked with four city administrations aimed at doing something with the 83-year-old structure off Kenmore Avenue.

This latest committee, which was established last year, plans to transform the dilapidated structure into a civic center and the James Monroe Presidential Center.

Once the building is restored, it would include a theater, exhibit and meeting space and would showcase artifacts and research related to the life of James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States.

The Monroe documents are now housed in a cramped museum--once the site of his law office--on Charles Street.

The committee is now in the process of determining the cost of the project and setting up a funding plan. It will also find occupants for the building and develop an operating plan and budget.

According to the tentative plan, the city would own the building unless the committee decides to create another ownership entity. The college would lease the building's west wing for the presidential center.

The committee is planning a public event for Sept. 25 at the former school. The committee will unveil its plan to revitalize the building and to connect it to other downtown attractions.

In other city business, the council is considering hiring an assistant to help council clerk Debbie Naggs fulfill Freedom of Information requests.

Naggs spent last week slogging through 5,000 council e-mails to satisfy an all-encompassing request made by city resident Patrick Timpone.

The city also voted unanimously for a 15-year extension of its franchise agreement with Chesapeake and Tangier Cruises, which operates "The City of Fredericksburg" riverboat cruises from City Dock.

To reach ELIZABETH PEZZULLO: 540/374-5421 epezzullo@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 8/13/2003