PRINCEVILLE - We have heard this before, but the new Heritage Museum and Welcome Center is close to opening.

Mayor and Commissioners are expected to review some of the signage that will be posted inside when the elected body meets tonight at Town Hall. The monthly meeting was moved from the fourth Monday due to the Memorial Day holiday.

No one knows when the remodeled former town hall on Mutual Boulevard will open, but Town Manager Sam Knight thinks it could be the first of July.

Construction by O’Neal Contracting Co. of Tarboro was complete months ago.

However, according to Knight and Mayor Delia Perkins, the holdup has been the displays inside by Point Concepts Design Inc. of Raleigh, which was contracted for that work. Knight thinks that may be completed by early June.

The state Department of Transportation, which has contributed most of the necessary funds toward the project, will have a display relating to transportation in the building, similar to museums in Roanoke Rapids, Fayetteville and Whiteville.

The town manager also is working on a job description for a person to manage the museum. The hours of operation have not been determined, either.

“I’m putting an ad together,” Knight said. “We need someone to run the museum, a curator, someone in the gift shop and a maintenance person.”

Knight indicated the salary for the director/curator would be negotiable, “but we want someone with experience,” he said.

The museum will include an exhibit room, a seminar room, a gift shop, an office, a kitchen, two bathrooms and a maintenance room.

“We’ve got to order items for the gift shop, too,” Knight said. “We’re not worried about furniture at this time.”

The cost of the museum more than doubled over the four years it took to come up with a contract. Two contracts signed by the previous mayor had to be re-done. A change in administration in 2005.

The museum costs about $790,000 with about 80 percent of which came from federal transportation enhancement funding “to strengthen the cultural, aesthetic and environmental aspects of the nation's intermodal transportation system.”

A grand opening will be planned for the town first known as Freedom Hill. It was renamed Princeville in 1885, the first town in the United States to be chartered by blacks.