A planned Fairfax County museum dedicated to the Cold War has reached a critical shortage of funding after a potential $200,000 grant dried up this year amid state belt-tightening, the museum’s founder said.
The museum is “very low on funds,” said Francis Gary Powers Jr., having spent much of the $700,000 in cash donations raised in recent years on planning the facility. The county is reviewing a potential lease that would put the museum on a tract at the former Lorton prison.
“We’re basically able to cover our monthly expenses as we go forward,” said Powers, whose father was shot down over the Soviet Union in a U-2 spy plane almost five decades ago in a seminal Cold War event.
The financial struggles are all the more troubling due to the enormous fundraising goals in front of museum planners: Powers needs an estimated $4 million to build the initial 10,000-square-foot phase over the next three years, and $46 million to completely build out to 10 times that size over the next decade.
State funds had supplied more than $100,000 over both of the last two years for the project; Powers said the sudden drop-off “may slow us down a bit” but isn’t a deal breaker. He spoke optimistically of a handful of new donor prospects.
“We’re courting people who caneither give or help give six and seven figures,” Powers said.
Funding requests like that of the Cold War Museum had little hope during budget talks in the General Assembly this year, when lawmakers puzzled over how to keep the state running with a $2 billion shortfall over the next three years.
Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, and Del. Joe May, R-Leesburg, had sought to secure funding, but the requests, with scores of other spending items, fell victim to the deficit.
Petersen, who said he has known Powers for years, said next fiscal year doesn’t bode well either if the economy doesn’t improve.
