State officials say they're working hard on the project and that it has not stalled. But officials haven't made any announcements in the last 12 months, nor have crews driven any nails.

The museum project has passed to its third governor and second design firm, which replaced Chadbourne's plan with one of its own. The project has gone through two outside-the-agency project directors and four commissioners of Culture and History, and will start on a fifth when Gov. Joe Manchin hires someone to succeed Troy Body, the acting commissioner who left at year's end.

In January 2001, Democrat Gov. Bob Wise succeeded Republican Gov. Cecil Underwood, and then a new Culture and History commissioner replaced the old one.

Chadbourne, who heads the museum design firm Christopher Chadbourne & Associates in Boston, said it's normal for the new team to want to put its own imprint on a project. "But rarely does it happen that they start all over from scratch. That's never happened to us before."

Before Gov. Cecil Underwood lost his bid for re-election, a glimpse of what was to come opened on the ground floor of the Cultural Center: an introductory exhibit in an oval exhibit case; banners hanging from the ceiling; a transitional staircase exhibit linking the ground floor to the museum one floor down.

Under Wise and Commissioner Nancy Herholdt, first the banners disappeared, then the oval exhibit case, and finally the staircase exhibit.

In 2004, crews dismantled the old museum, turned the area back into an empty shell, and replaced the old ramped walkways with escalators. They enlarged the restrooms. That was Phase I. Get ready, the museum was coming, officials said.

But it didn't come.

"I don't want to criticize individuals," Chadbourne said. "I'm just sad for the people of West Virginia. They've lost their old museum and don't have a new one."

For much of 2004, Culture and History officials said they were preparing bid specifications for Phases II and III. Phase II would put in new walls, and new electrical, fire-suppression and heating/air-conditioning systems. Phase III would be the museum itself.

In January 2005, Maynard C. Smith Construction submitted the second-phase low bid of $4.2 million, roughly 2 1/2 times higher than expected. State officials halted the bidding process, conceding that their $4.2 million estimate for Phase III also was too low. Officials said they needed to go over the plans again, tighten the specifications, cut out frills and rebid.

Chadbourne concedes that Nancy Herholdt, the commissioner for most of Wise's term, made a few improvements. She added in, for instance, the story of the Depression-era building of the Hawks Nest tunnel, sometimes called the greatest industrial disaster in U.S. history, when hundreds of workers died after breathing silica-rich dust. She added other recent events, including the Buffalo Creek disaster, when a mining company's earthen dam collapsed and 125 people died.

Whatever the imperfections - and Chadbourne is not willing to concede there were many - he was giving the state the museum for which officials had asked. "We were given a very tight budget. We came in on that."

Working, waiting

Ginny Painter, Culture and History's deputy commissioner and spokeswoman, said her people are working with museum professionals to resolve issues before asking for bids again. They have visited other recently built or remodeled museums and have talked with the National Park Services design center staff in Harpers Ferry.

There will not be another redesign, she said.

"We need to decide what we can afford to build, what we can afford to maintain, how the museum renovation will impact and be impacted by other Capitol Complex projects, and how we will resolve the issue of visitor parking."

Meanwhile, Painter gained a new staff member, Randall Reid-Smith, who has the title of special assistant to the commissioner for museum advancement. His job is to raise the private share of the money for this vaguely defined public/private partnership.

A Barboursville native in his mid-40s, Reid-Smith sang for 10 years in European opera houses before returning to the United States to teach voice at the University of Michigan. Then he went to the Toledo Opera, where he served as education outreach director and worked out logistical details for guest artists. He sang in productions with the Toledo Opera, but did not assist with fundraising. "He can be very charming," Conlin said.

House Finance Committee chief Harold Michael said he and Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick looked at an impressive scale model with Reid-Smith.

"But they didn't seem to have hard numbers on what it would cost," said Michael, D-Hardy. "We were waiting for someone from the governor's office to tell us what to do, but we never heard from them. It's up to the governor's folks to tell us what they want to do and how much it will cost, and then it has to go through the legislative process and see if we're going to agree with them."

In 1999, this was to be a $6 million project, with the state pitching in $4 million and a private campaign to raise $2 million. Volunteers raised $1.2 million, but missed deadlines have caused all but $440,000 to slip away.

The state has now committed $6.1 million - and spent $3.5 million of it - to what increasingly looks like a $15 million project. State officials won't offer their own estimate, except to say they will need a lot more than what they have and that they will need another campaign to raise private money.

A year ago, then-acting Commissioner Troy Body told a legislative committee it would be shortsighted to scale back the project and settle for what he described as a "room with artifacts." A redone museum will draw 300,000 people a year, compared with 120,000 for the old one, giving the Capitol Complex another big attraction, he added. But he would need another $6 million, maybe $8 million, in addition to the money already committed.

Lara Ramsburg, Manchin's spokeswoman, said the governor's people have been talking to Culture and History. "We've made progress the last few months," she said. But she does not expect the museum to be on the agenda when the governor calls lawmakers for a special session in May.

Delays costly

"To do it without the proper planning would not be in the best interests of the taxpayers," Ramsburg said. "The worst thing in the world is to build a museum that you can't maintain. That has to be part of the equation before you start."

A postponed construction project becomes an expensive construction project, said commercial realtor Jonathan Cavendish of RealCorp. "I've seen steel studs go from $1.10 to $4 apiece in the last three or four years. I take the position in my construction, 'Let's do it now.'"

The devastation from hurricanes Katrina and Rita have caused plywood and drywall prices to soar, Cavendish said. Suppliers frequently tell him to order this or that material now because a price increase is coming in a few weeks. "I don't like to forestall building anything, because I'm always fearful prices will go up, especially steel and wood."

Chadbourne, the project's original designer, said the project was moving right along when Conlin was in charge. "We found it was a good working group. They were capable of making decisions."

In June 2002, the legislative auditor's office, an oversight agency, took Herholdt to task for dawdling. Use the state's money wisely and get the project moving again, the auditor told Herholdt. Don't come back wanting more cash and don't redesign the project, the auditor cautioned.

Herholdt went out and hired Matthew Martin DesignWorks for another $995,000 to overhaul the work of Chadbourne, who had received $1.06 million. The state also paid an exhibits fabricator $350,000 to create and install Chadbourne's banners and exhibits, the ones that have now vanished.

The legislative auditor's office looked at the project a second time, and chastised Culture and History leaders for not following orders and for failing to keep the Legislature informed. The auditors also criticized the commissioner for failing to inform the Legislature before spending $200,000 to put in escalators, which also will cost $1,900 a month to maintain and will increase the museum's monthly energy bill.

Don't expect a completed museum before October 2008, Painter said.

John Sylvia, who runs performance evaluation for the Legislative Auditor's office, said he expects to take a fresh look this year.

The return of the historians for a second look, the inclusion of more stories from the past 75 years, and Matthew Martin's reworking of the original plans have all yielded a vastly better museum plan, Secretary of Education and the Arts Kay Goodwin said a year ago. "I think it's an exciting design, and I think it will be wonderful if we can get it to a place where it can be afforded."

"You had incredible stories. They were worth telling," Chadbourne said. "Someday, I hope you get the museum you deserve. If they'd like to go back to the original design, we'd be delighted. We've done a lot of projects since then. We opened 'The Price of Freedom' to rave reviews and record crowds at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History."