Replica Maritime Museum Shown to Freeholders

CREST HAVEN – Cape May Maritime Museum and Education Center took another step toward reality Sept. 9. Kevin Maloney and wife Sandy carefully carried into the freeholder meeting room a scale model of the building that, they hope, will be built at Sunset Beach, near the western end of Sunset Boulevard, Lower Township.
The site was one of the first in the state to have a lifesaving station.
The $740,000 facility will be a replica of an 1876 lifesaving station that had been at the nation’s centennial exposition in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. That station was relocated via train to Sea Grove (Cape May Point).
Maloney told freeholders that in the two years since the board approved a resolution of support, a $50,000 application fee to state Department of Environmental Protection, Land Use regulators, had been waived through efforts of Gary Thomas, an engineer. A CAFRA permit has been received, he said.
Also needed was an environmental impact study done by Mike Crewe program director, for New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, provided as a gift to the endeavor.
Mitchell Nichols had two excavators at the site. “He didn’t get much money, and he was there for a week,” said Maloney. “He did a terrific job clearing derelict pipes and debris. I don’t know how many containers he filled.”
An application was made to the county Open Space Trust Fund, but because it will be a replica, reconstruction, could not qualify under guidelines. “We, again, are not dissuaded. We are moving forward,” Maloney said. The group hopes to partner with Lower Township because it was the site of the original lifesaving station.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton asked Planning Director Leslie Gimeno and Tourism and Information Director Diane Wieland, “Are there any funding sources, Culture and Heritage, state or federal?” from which the project could benefit, he asked.
Gimeno said the project “didn’t fit in with historic preservation,” but that it might be possible to form a partnership to make the project eligible.
“That’s good,” said Thornton. Gimeno said the Open Space board reviewed the project in December 2013, and was “generally favorable, but had concerns.” Chief among them was that maximum funding would be $200,000, however to qualify for that amount a structure would have to be listed on state and national registers of historic places.
“Even to the lower tier, only $75,000 would be available,” she added. It may be possible that some of the park and recreation portion of Open Space funding could be found if “partnerships were developed in the right way.”
Terming it “a great project,” Thornton asked Wieland to “pursue that” angle of funding, perhaps from a Culture and Heritage standpoint.
Maloney said plans call for a 19,000-square-foot parking lot, which would relieve the crowded condition along Sunset Boulevard for the daily summertime flag-lowering ceremony attendees. Additionally, there will be a nature trial that will “open up that area.
“We are going to combine with Larry and Michelle and will pick up from Marvin Hume (World War II veteran who started the flag-lowering ceremony). Plans call for playing “God Bless America,” and shooting small cannon as part of the sunset flag ceremony “experience,” Maloney said. “It will be really special.”