After weeks of buildup, plans to finance a state of the art Pepsi Museum in downtown New Bern appear to have slowed.
On April 25, the New Bern Board of Aldermen voted to direct city staff to apply for a $950,000 Rural Transformation Grant previously earmarked for the Pepsi Museum that will go instead towards construction of the planned Stanley White Recreation Center.
At their April 11 meeting, the board agreed to seek nearly a million dollars in grant funding for the creation of a Pepsi Museum in downtown New Bern. The plan for the museum was put forth by Bradham’s Legacy, a local non-profit that was registered in March 2020 to be the governing body for the museum. The grant was seen as the first step towards finalizing plans for the new facility.
The April 25 decision to redirect the grant funding should it be approved came after the board failed to identify a location for the Pepsi Museum, a detail that is required in the grant application.
The meeting agenda included discussion of three possible city-owned locations for the museum — the vacant lot at the corner of South Front and Hancock streets; 408 Hancock Street, the city’s former fireman’s museum; or 925 Broad Street, the site of the Old Days Inn.
During the meeting, Alderman Johnnie Ray Kinsey made a motion that the board use the 408 Hancock Street location to apply for the grant, but his motion died for lack of a second from the board.
Mayor Jeffrey Odham, who votes as a board member, stated that, although he is a strong proponent of a Pepsi Museum in New Bern, he was unprepared to choose one of the properties. When Bradham’s Legacy asked the city to submit a grant application for the project earlier in April, Odham claimed, it was not known that the city needed to include a specific location for the museum.
“I’m still supportive of the Pepsi Museum, however I’m not supportive of rushing to make decisions and I am not prepared tonight to vote on a location that has not been vetted, that has not had enough input from the public, for us to move forward with a grant application,” Odham said.
City Manager Foster Hughes said an informal social media survey conducted by the city showed 75% of respondents preferred the old Days Inn site for the Pepsi Museum.
“First of all it’s a very informal, unscientific survey that was done on Facebook that anyone who has a Facebook account could have made a suggestion for that,” Odham said
Alderman Hazel Royal asked how a detail as important as the location of the museum was overlooked in the initial grant application discussions.
“How did we miss this? No one read the grant or that responsibility was delegated specifically to the grant writer?” Royal asked.
Bradham’s Legacy Chairman John Haroldson responded that the grant application was unclear that a specific address had to be given for the museum.
“It’s rather foggy language in the grant so that clarification came from the woman who administers the program, but if you read the grant it’s not clear that is the case,” Haroldson said.
According to Odham, the city also recently learned from an economic development official in Raleigh that the Rural Transformation Grant grant will most likely not be for the full $950,000 but possibly only half that amount.
“I’m not interested in applying for a grant for a few hundred thousand dollars that could be a million dollar mistake down the road,” he commented.
Haroldson said he was confident other funding sources could be found for the Pepsi Museum.
“I think we remain very optimistic that this is a popular project and that there will be fundraising success in funding the museum,” he said.
The total cost of the Pepsi Museum is estimated at approximately $5-$6 million. A $750,000 grant from the PepsiCo Foundation has already been secured. Bradham’s Legacy has also received $100,000 in local donations for the project.
According to Hughes, Rural Transformation Grants are designated for “shovel ready” projects like the Stanley White Recreation Center. Hughes said bids for construction opened Tuesday, with the low bid ranging from $12.9 million-$13.3 million.
Hughes said he would come back before the board at their next meeting to present the bid for consideration.
By Todd Wetherington, co-editor. Send an email with questions or comments.