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Teapot exhibit needs a splash less room
Organizers to sell 4 acres of Sparta site
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Published: July 16, 2008
SPARTA - Organizers of the Sparta Teapot Museum, who more than a year ago scaled back the project and lost a commitment to exclusively display a collection of teapots, are now planning to sell 4 acres of the downtown site.
The museum was intended to draw tourists -- and money -- to this small town near the Blue Ridge Parkway.
But organizers say that the region cannot support what was initially proposed. They plan to use the remaining 1.5 acres for a 16,000-square-foot museum. Construction has been pushed back to 2011.
"Everything about the project has been scaled back considerably to the point where 5.5 acres was not going to be needed," said Bryan Edwards, a member of the museum's board of directors and Sparta's town manager. "In order to free up cash and put that toward a more productive use, we will sell about 4 acres of the tract."
The board is asking $500,000 for the land. Edwards declined to say how much the land was purchased for in 2006.
The original plans called for a 30,000-square-foot museum at a cost of $14 million.
By 2006, the museum had raised $4.2 million -- some private donations, grants and money earmarked by Congress and the General Assembly -- and spent $300,000 for planning and site development for the originally planned building.
But after museum officials were unable to raise enough from private donors, they decided in July 2007 to reduce the size of the building by more than half.
The move jeopardized an arrangement to permanently display Sonny Kamm's more than 7,000 eclectic teapots -- a collection considered to be the largest of its kind in the world. Kamm, a Los Angeles millionaire, announced in October 2007 that he was pulling out of his commitment to exclusively display his collection at the museum in Sparta intended for them.
Kamm had not committed any money toward the building but insisted that it be big enough to display as many of the teapots as possible.
Organizers said they could not meet his requirements.
Kamm said yesterday that he couldn't agree to bring the entire collection to Sparta when organizers couldn't go ahead with the kind of museum they had originally contemplated.
The cost of the scaled-back museum is estimated to be
$6 million.
The project was widely ridiculed as an example of pork-barrel spending.
In 2005, state Rep. Jim Harrell III, D-Surry, helped secure $400,000 in the state budget for the museum -- but not without some on a Senate committee singing "I'm a Little Teapot" to him.
The project then became a national example of pork-barrel spending when U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, R-N.C., and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., pushed to earmark $500,000 in federal money for it. In 2006, Citizens Against Government Waste included it in an annual list, calling it a "poster child for pork."
Organizers in Sparta say they are planning a smaller museum that will display teapots from other collections along with local arts and crafts.
Despite the criticism, supporters say that it's still a vital project.
"We made accomplishments. We just haven't built the building yet," said Charlotte Hanes, a member of the museum's board of directors.
■ Sherry Youngquist can be reached in Mount Airy at 336-789-9338 or at syoungquist@wsjournal.com.
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