Mobile breaks ground on Maritime Museum

• Advocate marketing report
• Published: Apr 26, 2009

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In just a couple of years, visitors to the Mobile, Ala., area will have one more special place to visit.

Slated to open in late 2010, the National Maritime Museum will feature 90,000 square feet of interactive exhibits. The building is being designed and built to look like a maritime vessel headed out to sea.

Visitors will have the opportunity to step onto a full-sized replica of a container ship. Exhibits will be featured in areas of the ship, including the main deck, crew’s quarters, captain’s quarters, bridge and inside of the containers.

Some of the topics planned include marine archaeology, shipwrecks, animal and plant life in the Gulf, shipbuilding and the oil industry. Traveling exhibits will also be featured, with artifacts and interactive exhibits offering an even more in-depth experience.

According to museum spokesperson Stephanie Bradford, this will be the third maritime museum in the country with interactive exhibits instead of just a collection or artifacts and memorabilia.

A ferry terminal also will be inside the museum’s main structure. It will provide ferry service to other locations around Mobile Bay.

Groundbreaking for the museum recently took place, according to Bradford. It is expected to become the centerpiece of Michael C. Dow Mobile Landing, home of the Arthur C. Outlaw Convention Center, a cruise ship terminal and Cooper Riverside Park.

Temporarily, the museum’s offices are at the International Trade Center, 250 N. Water St., Suite 131, in Mobile.

Phone: (251) 436-8901

On the Net: http://www. nationalmaritime.us