CHANGING COURSE: City authorized to use $1.3 million in Native American Museum funds to complete stagnant theater project
The city of Kosciusko is switching gears from the construction of a Native American Museum on the former Leonard’s department store site to the completion of the stagnant Strand theater redevelopment project.
At the city’s request, Rep. Jason White garnered approval for legislation allowing for the reallocation of $1 million in legislative and Archives & History grant funds from the museum project to the Strand effort.
“The Board of Aldermen is exploring the feasibility of utilizing the museum grant money to renovate the Strand building into a multi-use facility, in which part could be a Native American museum,” Cockroft told The Star-Herald, noting the need for an error in the legislative language to be fixed in a future session. “In the meantime, the city will be viewing schematic designs that best meet the goal of turning this building into an economic development facility while preserving the historic aspects of the building.”
White said the reallocation makes sense under the circumstances.
“The Mayor approached me about the issue with the museum and the potential for reallocating those funds to go toward the Strand project,” he 
said. “With the Leonard’s building collapse, we decided at this point to put this money towards the Strand project. We can always revisit the Native American Museum project in the future.”
Cockroft said the city will likely start the planning process with earlier schematics drawn up by Belinda Stewart & Associates to repurpose the Strand as mainly a conference center. Cockroft said one topic of discussion will be whether it is possible to incorporate a Native American museum space within the Strand project.
“Part of the goal of that is to cover expenses daily,” said Cockroft. “To have economic impact, we prefer it not just be a rental place.”
The Strand was purchased by the city for approximately $50,000 and the roof and facade were replaced with earlier grant funds from the Mississippi Arts Commission before the project fell dormant for lack of funding, according to Cockroft.
The Native American Museum — set for the site of the former Leonard’s Department store on the square — was stopped early in the reconstruction process when a significant portion of the roof and outer wall of the donated building collapsed.
In addition to the $1 million reallocated by the legislature, there is $300,000 remaining in insurance monies from the collapse after $500,000 was expended to pay the contractor
and architect for work completed on the old Leonard’s property, as well as site cleanup following the collapse. With a total cost estimated at more than $4 million, the project was coming up short despite efforts by the Kosciusko Attala Community Foundation (KACF) to raise additional funds for the project.
Hollis Cheek of the KACF said once the legislative language is cleaned up and plans for the new project are complete, the KACF will contact those who pledged donations to the prior museum project to see if they want to transfer their pledges to the Strand project, leave them for a potential future museum project (if the museum concept is not included in the Strand), or cancel their pledges.
“Utilizing this existing building makes sense,” Cheek told The Star-Herald. “I think it is a good move. I believe the city had good intentions (on the museum project) but because of the building failure, ended up with a vacant lot.”
Cockroft said city officials have not yet discussed the future of the former Leonard’s lot should the museum concept be incorporated into the Strand project.
