The U.S. Army may have hindered money-raising efforts for its own national museum by nixing a plan to use revenue from leased federal land to fund the project.
The Army planned to lease out land on Fort Belvoir’s 800-acre Engineer Proving Ground near Interstate 95 but backed off shortly after Rep. Jim Moran, D, and Sen. John Warner, R, sought to introduce legislation blocking the venture. They objected because businesses located on the land would have generated traffic but could not be taxed to help deal with the traffic at the same levels as nearby firms not on federal land.
The decision by Army officials, announced Thursday, shifts a greater fundraising burden to the Army Historical Foundation, which sources say has been unexpectedly slow in raising money. The group has raised $14 million of its $200 million goal, said foundation spokesman Col. David Fabian (ret.).
“Naturally, we would like to be a lot further ahead,” he said. “We’re in the process of building staff. … I wouldn’t say it’s been running behind, but I would say that the cultivation process for something like this does take time.”
Fabian said the foundation remains “confident that we’ll be able to raise the money” for what would be the Army’s first national museum. He said he hopes to have the majority of the museum funds raised before the 2011 groundbreaking, and the rest by the planned 2013 opening.
Enhanced-use leasing could have put them closer to that goal, though Army officials never knew exactly how much.
The plan had drawn criticism from Moran, Warner and other elected officials who objected to using federal revenue for a private museum instead of area transportation needs. And local officials worried the leasing would have drawn away firms that would have otherwise contributed to county revenue.
