For over 30 years, representatives with the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame searched and scoured for a site to open some sort of museum aimed at telling the unique history of the Port City’s past with professional sports.

That search might finally be over. Under a proposal pitched by the Sports Hall of Fame, the lobby at the RSA Battle House Tower – a site first identified in 2011, as the possible home – will be transformed into an interactive museum.

The Mobile County Commission, with a unanimous vote on Monday, authorized $300,000 for the build-out of the museum contingent on an appropriation from the City of Mobile that goes “over and above” the county’s expense.

“It’s tourism, quality of life and having things for people to do downtown,” Commissioner Randall Dueitt said. “We’re so rich in sports hall of famers from boxing to baseball and football. It’s important to recognize them and have these exhibits so people understand the sports figures who came out of Mobile.”

Interactive exhibit

Stephen Clements, chairman of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, said the city will be asked to appropriate $500,000, a request that a couple of council members – when reached Monday – said they were not aware of.

“Sports tourism is growing and is an extremely large part of the tourism business,” Clements, a Mobile attorney, said. “This is something that will be interactive, and it will be something young and old folks alike will be able to go into and learn something about the heroes we have had here.”

The total price-tag is $809,000, Clements said. If financing is secured, the project will be built by Greenville, South Carolina-based Jack Porter, a company that specializes in transforming spaces into interactive exhibits. Their portfolio consists of athletic training venues such as the University of Arkansas baseball development center and the University of Georgia track and field locker rooms.

It also consists of lobbies and corporate board rooms, as well as museum-like exhibits. Jack Porter built out the West Virginia Hall of Traditions at Milan Pusker Stadium – home to the Mountaineers football team – that blends interactive experiences with historic memorabilia.

Heroes Plaza

Clements said the Mobile project will be similar, and serve as an anchor to Heroes Plaza, a separate $8.9 million project under development within close walking distance to the RSA Tower located near Cooper Riverside Park. The interactive exhibit will aim to highlight the stories of the more than 100 people who are enshrined at Mobile Sports Hall of Fame members.

The plaza’s is being paid for primarily through revenues from the city’s downtown tax-increment financing (TIF) district. A TIF district in Alabama is a geographically defined area aimed at promoting economic development within its boundaries. As development occurs, the value of a property increases within the district – and as a result of rising property values – so do the revenues generated by property taxes. The extra taxes are set aside in the TIF fund to pay for projects like Heroes Plaza.

The plaza, when completed in either late 2024 or early 2025, will feature sculptures of the five Major League Baseball Hall of Famers from Mobile and Robert Brazile Jr., the only Mobile native in the National Football League Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

The five Mobilians enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y. are: Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, and Ozzie Smith. No other city, outside of New York City and Los Angeles, have as many native residents who are members of the MLB Hall of Fame.

Clements said the RSA Tower project would “tag along” with the city and county’s promotional efforts once Heroes Plaza is completed. He called the RSA Tower project, “the cherry on top of the sports pie here.”

It’s unclear on whether the city could also use TIF funds to pay for the Hall of Fame exhibit.

“This will be the light at the end of that walk,” Clements said, referring to the short stroll from the future statues to the Hall of Fame exhibit. “If you start at the GulfQuest Maritime Museum, and head north and follow the trail and see the last statue, there will be the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame.”

Free admission

Clements said the exhibit will be open “24 hours a day,” and will be free to attend. He said the Sports Hall of Fame will be required to maintain the facility, noting that the taxpayers’ expense is a one-time only appropriation.

He said his organization is reaching out to potential private donors to help with ongoing maintenance expenses.

The movement on the project stems from a decision in early 2011, unveiled during a City Council meeting by Joe Gottfried – then-chairman of the Sports Hall of Fame board of directors – to use the lobby space between the RSA Tower and the Renaissance Mobile Battle House Hotel and Spa as the future museum site. The Hall of Fame project has long had the blessing of RSA Chief Executive Officer David Bronner, who is letting the group use the space free of charge.

“The RSA generously, years ago, gave us that space to use contingent upon us building it out,” Clements said. “That’s what we are doing now … getting the funding to build it out. After decades of recognizing these great athletes in Mobile, we’ll have a home.”