VirginiaPilotOnline: McDonnell announces $41M for Yorktown museum
Funding to replace the Yorktown Victory Center, a 35-year-old museum that chronicles aspects of the American Revolution, has been secured through the sale of bonds, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Thursday.
The project will include a new 80,000-square-foot building with expanded exhibition galleries, classrooms and support functions, and a reorganization of the center's 22-acre site.
In a statement about the $41 million investment, McDonnell touted the new York-town Victory Center as part of his effort to boost state tourism.
"Virginia is where the Revolutionary War was won and a young nation's independence was secured. Yorktown should be the first place tourists from all across the globe come to learn about a war that forever changed the world," said McDonnell, who is overseas on an Asian trade mission.
"The new Victory Center will go far to enhance its status as the nation's only living-history museum dedicated to telling the entire story of the American Revolution, and will result in a significant investment in the economy of the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown Historic Triangle."
The Yorktown Victory Center and Jamestown Settlement are operated by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. The center opened in 1976 to coincide with the nation's bicentennial. Planning for a new museum began in 2007.
In addition to the bonds for the museum project, McDonnell also announced Thursday that $600 million in bonds had been sold as part of his plan to jump-start funding for road projects around Virginia.
