Friday, June 13, 2008
By AMBER CRAIG
Staff Reporter

PASCAGOULA -- Community members pushing to bring the decommissioned USS Ticonderoga to Pascagoula plan to ask the U.S. Navy for an extension of more than a year on the July deadline to turn in the application.

The current deadline is July 31, but members of the Mississippi Ticonderoga Project are drafting a letter to Capt. Dave Tungett, manager of the Navy Inactive Ships Program, requesting that the deadline be pushed back to October 2009.

"There's no way we're going to have this application to the Navy by July," said Dr. Jack Hoover, president of the Mississippi Ticonderoga Project, during a project board meeting Thursday evening.

The guided missile cruiser, built at Ingalls and commissioned in 1983, would be the centerpiece of a proposed Mississippi Maritime and Warship Museum on the east bank of the city -- in the heart of a proposed waterfront development.

Hoover said board members are requesting the October 2009 date because it gives them more than a year to plan and raise funds but is not so far into the future that the Navy would deny the request.

The group will be able to complete the application process by then, Hoover said. The city of Pascagoula approved the project in October.

The group plans to send the letter within the next two weeks.

The total cost of the project is predicted to be $8 million to $10 million for seed money, site preparation, berthing locations, moorings, the museum and other operations. The ship is moored at the Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia.

The initial stage, a feasibility study, is expected to cost between $40,000 and $50,000.

Pat Keene, vice president of the Mississippi Ticonderoga Project, said the feasibility study will show the group how accurate their estimated cost really is.

"That's really the heart of where we go next," Keene said.

Board members are also discussing visiting with Gov. Haley Barbour to request state funding, but the group wants to have at least $10,000 raised before then.

The board has raised $4,000 so far.

Pascagoula Mayor Matthew Avara has said that he would not support spending taxpayer dollars on the Ticonderoga project.

If approved, the Ticonderoga would be the state's first warship museum.

Reporter Amber Craig can be reached at acraig@themississippipress.com or 228-934-1428.

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