This may be old; I ran across it while websufring:

NEW BUILDINGS, EXHIBITIONS, PROGRAMS
PLANNED FOR
JAMESTOWN SETTLEMENT BY 2007

WILLIAMSBURG, Va.-Jamestown Settlement is undergoing a transformation in
preparation for the 400th anniversary of America's first permanent English
colony and its own 50th birthday in 2007. The museum, which opened in 1957
as a setting for the Jamestown Festival commemorating the colony's 350th
anniversary, is incorporating recent historical findings in planning for
the next half-century of chronicling the nation's Virginia origins.
       The board of trustees of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the
Virginia agency that operates Jamestown Settlement, adopted a comprehensive
facilities master plan in 1997 for developing physical facilities to
support growth in visitation, programming and staffing through the year
2007 and beyond. Since 1990, when a major gallery expansion was completed
at Jamestown Settlement, paid visitation at the museum has increased by 50
percent.
       The $72 million master plan also includes improvements at the
Yorktown Victory Center, a museum of the American Revolution, and
construction of a central support complex between the two museums. In 2006,
the Yorktown Victory Center will have a role in commemorating the 225th
anniversary of the momentous American victory at Yorktown.
       The new facilities are scheduled for completion by the Jamestown
quadricentennial in 2007, and will serve the public for decades into the
new century. The first element of the plan to be completed, a
36,000-square-foot education center, opened at Jamestown Settlement in
March 2000. The new building houses the museum gift shop, classrooms, an
open atrium for public events, offices and support areas, and is serving as
the museum entrance while construction of an adjacent 32,000-square-foot
visitor reception and café building is under way. The second building is
scheduled to open to the public in 2002.
       Design work is under way on a 35,000-square-foot theater and special
exhibition hall and a 42,000-square-foot exhibition building. The theater
and special exhibition hall will house interim exhibits from 2003 to 2006
while the new permanent galleries are under construction. Afterward, a
special Jamestown quadricentennial exhibition, "The World of 1607," will
portray Jamestown and 17th-century Virginia as part of an intellectual,
social and economic new world that brought together peoples and ideas from
around the globe.
       The new permanent exhibition galleries will double the amount of
exhibit space now available at Jamestown Settlement. Drawing on recent
archaeological and documentary research, new exhibits will tell the story
of 17th-century Virginia and its American Indian, European and African
cultural origins, accommodate growth in the museum collection, and
incorporate advances in multi-media technology.
       Significant enhancements incorporating recent archaeological and
documentary findings are planned for Jamestown Settlement's re-created
17th-century Powhatan Indian village, English ships and colonial fort. In
addition, a new riverfront interpretive area will focus on the vital role
of waterways in 17th-century commerce and travel. European, Virginia Indian
and African economic activities associated with water will be compared and
contrasted through demonstrations of boat building, lumber production,
fishing, navigation and trade.
       A Paspahegh Indian village uncovered by the James River Institute
for Archaeology a few miles from Jamestown in the early 1990s will serve as
the model for Jamestown Settlement's Powhatan Indian village. The Paspahegh
site, dating to the early 17th century, revealed a cluster of three large
buildings, or yehakins, and scattered smaller houses. This pattern will be
adapted for the Powhatan village, which will be bordered by a new discovery
trail using plantings and interactive signage to interpret the relationship
of Powhatans to the larger environment.
       To expand visitor access to the interpretive area featuring
re-creations of the three ships that reached Virginia in 1607, a shelter
will be constructed at the pier. Scheduled for completion in 2001, the
shelter will be used for orientations and maritime demonstrations.
Proposals to plan new re-creations of Jamestown Settlement's smaller ships,
Godspeed and Discovery, were approved by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
trustees in May 2000. Architectural designs for the new ships would be
modeled on an interpretation of the probable sizes of the original ships,
based on the documented cargo capacities and current maritime research. The
new ships would provide the opportunity to implement an outreach sailing
program in 2006 to draw attention to the Jamestown quadricentennial. There
are no plans to replace the largest and newest re-creation, Susan Constant,
commissioned in 1991.
       The fort, which re-creates the settlement as it may have appeared
about 1610, will undergo significant changes based on recent discoveries at
early 17th-century sites including the original site of Jamestown, Jordan's
Journey near Hopewell and Fort St. George in Maine. The chapel will be
rebuilt and repositioned so that the altar is located on the east side to
conform with church practice. A new storehouse will be the largest building
in the fort. A governor's house will be added, and a kitchen and buttery
equipped for preparing large quantities of food will help illustrate the
military nature of James Fort.
       The interpretive areas will be linked by a time line that will
provide supplementary information to visitors.
       Also planned for completion at Jamestown Settlement by 2007 are a
welcome court, a significant landmark to commemorate the founding of
Jamestown, and reconfiguration and expansion of the visitor parking lot.
       Elements of the comprehensive facilities master plan have been
funded to date with $32.7 million from the Commonwealth of Virginia, $1.6
million in Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation admissions revenue, and $1.5
million in gifts from individuals and organizations to the
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that
supports programs of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.
       Located just southwest of Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement is
adjacent to the original site of Jamestown, which is jointly administered
by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and
Colonial National Historical Park. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
daily year-round. For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or
(757) 253-4838 or visit the Web site, www.historyisfun.org.
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