RICHMOND, Va.—The First Freedom Center received final approval from the Richmond City Council July 23 to construct a downtown exhibit and hotel complex to highlight religious freedom.
The City Council’s action paves the way for the 28-year-old non-profit educational organization to begin its long-planned $30 million project, undertaken in partnership with Apple REIT Nine, a Richmond real estate development firm.
An architectural rendering of the First Freedom Center complex shows the conference center between two hotels. (Photo courtesy of First Freedom Center)
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The First Freedom Center was founded in 1984 to advance freedom of religion and conscience both in the United States and around the world. It was organized just prior to the bicentennial of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, adopted by the state’s General Assembly in 1786—generally regarded as the first legislative protection of religious freedom in history. The Virginia Statute was a model for the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The center conducts educational programs nationwide, publishes annual monitoring reports on the status of religious minorities around the world and partners with universities, religious freedom and human rights organizations and public schools.
Its new facility, to be located on the site where the General Assembly adopted the Virginia Statute, will include an auditorium and conference rooms, space for permanent and traveling exhibits, a monument to religious freedom and a large glass wall with the text of the Statute etched into it. Adjacent to the center will be a landscaped piazza and two hotels—a Marriott Courtyard and Marriott Residence Inn—with a combined total of 205 guest rooms. The hotels will house a religious freedom library and other educational features.
A portion of the text of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom graces the wall overlooking the site on which the state's General Assembly passed it. (Photo courtesy of First Freedom Center)
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A special use permit from the City Council was necessary to waive requirements related to off-street parking, signage, building height and loading spaces.
“The City Council’s action allows us to go ahead with the project,” said Randolph Bell, the center’s president. “Funding is already in hand.”
Bell said a ceremonial ground-
breaking event probably will be held at the site in September.
Actual construction should begin around the first of year, said Justin Knight, president of Apple REIT Nine, and is expected to be completed about 12 to 18 months later.
Thomas Jefferson drafted what became the Virginia Statute in 1777 and the General Assembly enacted it into law in 1786. The legislation effectively disestab-
lished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion for all faiths—a move strongly endorsed by the state’s Baptists.
In 1786, Richmond had been Virginia’s seat of government for only six years and the Jefferson-designed capitol was still under construction. The General Assembly held its sessions in a renovated warehouse at the corner of Cary and 14th streets.
The warehouse was long ago demolished and today the site is a parking lot in the heart of Shockoe Slip, a lively district of restaurants, bars and loft apartments. The First Freedom Center is headquartered in a row of renovated 19th-century commercial buildings beside the parking lot. On the buildings’ back walls overlooking the lot and busy Cary Street is painted a portion of the Virginia Statute’s text—easily visible to thousands of locals and tourists who frequent the neighborhood.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.