Officials announce plans for National High School Sports museum in Easton

Calling the Lehigh Valley the “biggest high school sports area in the country,” Robert Ferraro Sr. formally announced plans to bring a High School Sports Hall of Fame museum to Downtown Easton to bolster the corridor as a tourism destination.
“The Lehigh Valley is unique in its support from the community for sports,” said Ferraro. “You’ll read in Texas where you’ll have 20,000 people for a high school football game, but none of them will come to a volleyball game.”
Ferraro Sr. is an Easton native and former head wrestling coach at Bucknell University who founded the National High School Coaches Association in 1989.
The city will raze the former Perkins restaurant and Marquis movie theater to make way for a 350-space parking deck, 36-space surface lot and eight-bay bus terminal on the South Third Street location.

The city tentatively plans to front the intermodal facility with a shell building for the bus ticket office and space that it will lease to the NHSCA for offices and the hall of fame museum.
Ferraro Sr. says his organization will privately raise the money for the interior, which he said will be constructed by Tuskes Homes.
While the NHSCA would welcome state funding, Ferraro isn't counting on it.
“If we had public money, that would be great, but we’re not depending on it,” he said.
Plans for the interior include areas for memorabilia as well as a theater and training facility. Ferraro hopes that the museum could follow along with the scheduled opening for the intermodal facility in late 2011.Read More......