SAN BENITO — Soon, a guitar-shaped entrance will welcome visitors to a treasure trove of history.
After years of planning and grueling setbacks, the cash is rolling out for a project that started as a dream.
Since about 1995, city leaders such as Tootie Madden, vice president of the San Benito Historical Society, have planned for a museum to showcase the city’s rich history.
Along the way, organizers have overcome major setbacks in their project to house the Freddy Fender Museum, the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum and the San Benito History Museum.
“Finally, the dream will come true,” Rey Avila said yesterday.
Now, the city is making plans to break ground on the $1.7 million project to build the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum.
City commissioners have entered into a contract with Jones Construction of Weslaco to build the 6,932-square-foot building off Heywood Street on 2.18 acres at San Benito Plaza, near the Community Building and the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center.
“I’m just excited,” Mayor Celeste Sanchez said after the meeting Tuesday night. “We’re finally making progress.”
But first, the U.S. Economic Development Administration has to approve the contract.
Rachel Siller, assistant director of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said the agency is expected to approve the contract within days.
Ground breaking is set for Feb. 7, Avila said.
To fund the project, the city will use a $1 million EDA grant and about $700,000 set aside from its general fund, City Manager Manuel de la Rosa said.
The building will allow the Freddy Fender Museum, the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum and the San Benito History Museum to expand their exhibits.
Since 2008, the three museums have shared a 1,000-square-foot area in the city’s Community Center.
For years, city leaders have planned the museum to showcase San Benito’s history while drawing tourists here.
“It will be a place where people can come to see our history and learn and to take pride in ourselves as a city,” Sanchez said.
In 2001, Avila launched the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum inside his home.
For years, Avila has stored artifacts dating to the city’s heyday as a recording center for conjunto pioneers like Narciso Martinez, the master accordionist from La Paloma.
In the new museum, Avila’s organization plans to display a replica of the city’s legendary Ideal Recording Studio, complete with the company’s original record presses.
Organizers triumphed over steep hurdles.
In 2013, the project was moved to a nine-acre site along the resaca, where the city used a $1.2 million federal grant to help buy the land at 500 Business 77.
But officials scrapped those plans after realizing original grant specifications required the museum be built at the Heywood Street site.
Plans call for construction of a building designed in the shape of a guitar.
A guitar-shaped entrance will front Heywood Street.
City officials are counting on the museum to draw tourism to the Resaca City, considered by many to be the birthplace of conjunto music.
The museum will help transform the city’s downtown area, Sanchez said.
City leaders planned the museum to help make San Benito a tourist destination.
“When I go to a city, I want to see museums,” Sanchez said. “There are people who enjoy going to museums to learn about the city and the area.”
