Fayetteville Buildings Come Down to Make Room for Army Museum

City workers are almost finished tearing down more than a dozen downtown buildings to make way for the Army's Airborne and Special Operations Museum.

The multi-million dollar museum is expected to be downtown's crown jewel. Original plans had it being built on Fort Bragg, but Fayetteville city leaders convinced those funding the project to put it right in the heart of downtown.

Decades ago "The Cellar" was one of Fayetteville's most popular nightclubs. But time has taken it's toll on it and other buildings downtown. They've become home for vagrants and targets for vandals.

City Special Projects manager, Curtis Hancock, says The Cellar and 16 other buildings are coming down to make way for the museum.

Listen toauorReal Audiofile."The demolition will take approximately another six to seven weeks. The site work will begin that and you'll start seeing the building coming out of the ground in late summer of early fall."City leaders say this project will play a huge part in making downtown more visitor friendly. In turn, the museum is expected to be one of the areas biggest draws, bringing in both local and out-of state visitors who would normally by-pass downtown Fayetteville.

Downtown workers, like Dana Carfrey. are looking forward to the extra business the museum will bring to town.

Listen toauorReal Audiofile."A lot of people when they come to Fort Bragg are going to say 'hey let's check out this museum and see what's going on' an d they're going to come downtown and see what kinds of things we have out here to offer."

Construction on the museum is scheduled to begin in September. The project is expected to be completed in the 2000.