Gift is first of several donations slated for submarine restoration project
BY BRIAN HICKS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
The city of North Charleston has strengthened its ties to the Hunley by paying $50,000 toward the sub's restoration, the first of several expected donations to the project.
The city has promised to kick in that much every year for lab operations until a North Charleston Hunley Museum is opened. The first installment was paid Thursday.
State Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the Hunley Commission, said the money will help make up for a decreasing amount of federal funding for the project.
"This $50,000 will go a long way toward paying the expenses of conserving the Hunley," McConnell said.
The federal Defense Legacy fund that has paid most of the project's bill has decreased, mainly due to budget constraints, from $700,000 in 2003 to $450,000 in 2004.
McConnell says the project is debt-free after front-end costs for raising and excavating the sub put the project $2.2 million in the hole. That money has been repaid, and 75 percent of money spent on the project is now raised privately.
North Charleston offered to pay $13 million of the proposed $40 million museum's price tag as part of its bid to keep the Confederate sub, currently on the former Navy base, in the city. This money, Mayor Keith Summey says, is the city's way of showing its commitment to the sub.
"This is what we talked about," Summey said. "We want to be a part of the restoration of the Hunley."
The museum, which is planned for the banks of the Cooper River just north of the Navy Base, is under design. McConnell says he'd like to see it open by 2008, but that could depend on how long it takes to restore the sub.
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