PROVIDENCE – A $70,000 challenge grant from New Boston Development Partners LLC, the developer of the Gateway at Quonset Point, today helped launch the $250,000 “Can-Do Building Campaign” for a new museum honoring the Naval Construction Battalions (CBs) or Seabees.
“Personally, I can’t think of a more suitable way to honor the Seabees than to construct a museum to preserve the record of their original home,” Nicholas Fisch, president-elect of the Seabee Museum and Memorial Park, said in announcing the gift this afternoon at the State House. “With New Boston’s help, we will make this a reality.”
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The corporate gift – $20,000 for landscape and site improvements and a $50,000 challenge grant that requires matching donations – will support the construction of an 80-by-120-foot building that will house exhibits, historical documents, memorabilia and photographs commemorating Seabees past and present, plus a new museum store.
“When we first started working on this project with the Quonset Development Corporation, we were struck by the dedication, honor and commitment of the Seabee organization,” said Jerry Pucillo, senior vice president of New Boston. “We are proud to support and incorporate what we call the ‘heroic engineers’ into the Gateway project.”
It will be set on a 6.5-acre parcel – part of the 72-acre Gateway development at Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown – linked by landscaping and walkways to the rest of the Gateway. The new museum will be the heart of the memorial complex, which already includes a smaller museum, seven rebuilt Quonset huts, the Seabee-built Chapel in the Pines and the “Fighting Seabee” statue that for many years stood at the entrance to the Seabees’ Davisville birthplace.
“The proposed modern, climate-controlled museum further preserves the Seabee heritage, and will provide an opportunity for schoolchildren, Gateway visitors, Seabee veterans and other visitors to learn more about how this elite service was formed right here in Rhode Island,” Fisch said.
“We are proud to have in our community the original home of the Fighting Seabees and the famous Quonset Hut – that magnificent engineering wonder that has lasted for decades and carried the name Quonset worldwide,” added Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt, R-North Kingstown.
The two-year “Can-Do” campaign “is the future of this museum … a world-class facility dedicated to honoring and commemorating the extraordinary accomplishments of the Seabees and Civil Engineer Corps,” Fisch said. The larger building will allow the museum foundation to display hundreds of photographs and documents currently in storage, he said.
The Seabee Museum and Memorial Park – a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation located on property that was once part of the Davisville Navy Base – was formed by members of the Seabee Veterans of America after the base closed. Additional information about the museum and its “Can-Do” campaign is available at www.SeabeesMuseum.com.
New Boston Development Partners LLC, the developer of the Gateway at Quonset Point, is a subsidiary of the New Boston Fund Inc., a Boston-based real estate investment management firm founded in 1993 that has nearly $2.5 billion in cumulative investment and development activity. To learn more, visit www.NewBostonFund.com .
