Build a full-scale replica of Lumpkin’s Jail at its former site in Shockoe Bottom.

Construct a wax museum at the site.

Develop an interactive space for children there.

Provide a place for reflection where people can gather for discussions and private meditations.

Those were among the suggestions from about 30 people who attended a “Richmond Speaks” meeting Sept. 29 at Franklin Military Academy to generate ideas on how the city should transform the former Lumpkin’s Jail into a heritage and learning center.

People attending the meeting in Richmond’s East End first heard from officials involved in the project. Participants then split into small groups to talk about their ideas for the site, known as “The Devil’s Half Acre,” before reporting their ideas to the entire audience.

Tasha Chambers, director of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, said her group wanted “an authentic site,” perhaps “a space without walls.”

They also suggested creating an endowment to ensure the project’s sustainability and backed organizing a consortium of all the city’s museums to tell the city’s full history in order to provide an opportunity for “reconciliation” by all.

John Whitworth, who grew up in Liverpool, England, one of the busiest slave-trading ports on the Atlantic Ocean, said his group wants to see the jail reconstructed in a way so that “people could touch and feel” the horrors that enslaved people suffered at the site. Re-enactors also should be on site to provide a more realistic portrayal of life inside the slave pen, said Mr. Whitworth, who has lived in Church Hill for 12 years.

Simone Gordon, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School and the lone teenager at the forum, said she “never learned anything” about slavery in her classes and “I wanted something better than that” going forward.

“It’s important to get more youths involved in this,” she stressed.

She suggested teachers give students extra credit for attending community meetings and forums.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones announced on Aug. 13 plans to build a history pavilion at the Shockoe Bottom site as a means of “helping tell the story that has been overlooked for too long.”

The project is to be paid for with city and state funds allocated to tell about Richmond’s major role in the slave trade, he said at the time. The city has allocated $8 million and the state an additional $11 million.

Four community forums were held in September to gain input on how to go forward with the project.

The next one is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, at Linwood Holton Elementary School, 1600 W. Laburnum Ave., on North Side.

The mayor said he hopes to break ground on the project by July 2016.

For more information on the Lumpkin’s Jail community forums, go to www.RichmondSpeaksAboutLumpkins.org.