Preparations have begun at the Alabama Veterans Museum & Archives to renovate space for a memorial park. County workers began tearing down structures in front of the museum Monday morning where the park will be built.

In May 2022, the Alabama Veterans Museum received a $1 million appropriation from Gov. Kay Ivey for renovations to the museum building including increasing the size of the event center, making repairs to the roof and air conditioning, and maintenance as well the addition of a memorial park in the space between the museum and Pryor Street.

Museum director Sandy Thompson said that bids for the memorial park are expected to go out in August while work inside the building is currently under way. She did not give an estimate as to when the project would be completed.

“The park will have beautiful walkways, a round burn pit for retiring flags, monuments to all the wars, and I think we will have the service emblems in the ground. It will have benches, landscape and flags. It’s going to be beautiful,” Thompson said.

Inside, the event center stage has been removed, and a new stage will be built. Dressing rooms behind the old stage were removed, creating space for the new stage to sit further back and more room for tables at events. Other additions to the event center thus far are a large, high definition display screen and a roll-down United States flag.

Two storage structures and an old house have long sat on the property where the memorial park will be erected. Monday, July 17, the Limestone County Commission approved tearing down the house and hauling it to the landfill. The museum will reimburse the county for dumping costs.