Some updates.
Hyannis armory's new life as pirate museum OK'dBy Patrick Cassidy
pcassidy@capecodonline.com
November 28, 2013
HYANNIS Gov. Deval Patrick has signed a bill that allows the town of Barnstable to lease the National Guard Armory on South Street, which will become a pirate museum.
The bill, which was sponsored by state Rep. Brian Mannal, D-Barnstable, is one of the last remaining hurdles before developers can move forward with plans for a museum there. Patrick signed the bill Tuesday, Mannal said.
The town owns the property, which was the site of John F. Kennedy's acceptance speech after he won the presidency in 1960, and needed the special legislation to lease it because of stipulations included when it was originally conveyed to the town.
In 2012 town officials received five formal responses to a request to gauge interest in the use of the property, including a proposal from developers Charles F. Doe Jr. and Robert Carlton as well as Barry Clifford, who discovered the wreckage of the pirate ship Whydah off Wellfleet in 1984. Earlier this year the town awarded the lease for the building to that group, which has proposed an exhibit centered on artifacts from the Whydah.
Barry Clifford finds wrecks off Madagascar