City gives museum space for artifacts

The Museum of the Marine's days of paying rent to house artifacts will soon end.

The City of Jacksonville is drawing up a contract between the museum and city detailing terms and conditions giving the museum use of a building in the public services complex off U.S. 17, said John Carter, the city's attorney.

The Museum of the Marine has been renting space from Brown's Storage, on U.S. 258, to store its artifacts - including uniforms, weapons, pictures and gear from World War II, Korea and Vietnam - and paying more than $500 a month for the space, said retired Sgt. Maj. Joe Houle, who serves as Director of Operations for the Museum of the Marine.

The nearly 1,000 square feet from the city will not cost a dime, Carter said.

Once artifacts are in their new home, museum staff will begin cataloguing artifacts, Houle said.

Jacksonville Public Services Director Grant Sparks brought the idea to the City Council at Tuesday night's workshop, and council asked Carter to draw up the contract.

"It's just something we wanted to do to help the museum continue to develop," Sparks said.

While Houle would like to move the artifacts to their new home Monday, Carter hopes to have the contract drawn up in the next day or two and present it to the board for approval.

"We'll do our best to get it to the council (quickly)," Carter said.

The museum has been looking for space since January.

"We need a space to spread this stuff out so we can get it catalogued," Houle said, adding that the artifacts are currently in boxes and on shelves.

The museum has been in the works for a decade, and hopes to open in 2012, however it still needs to raise $10 million to build the museum, Houle said.

Contact Amanda Hickey at 910-219-8461 or ahickey@freedomenc.com. Read the Lejeune Deployed blog at http://lejeunedeployed.freedomblogging.com.