Suddenly there is a new source of funding that might help Richmond create replacement monuments for the white supremacist Confederates that have been taken down from Monument Avenue and other city sites.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation based in Pittsburgh has announced plans to spend $250 million over the next five years to enable communities to create new monuments and memorials.

The Oct. 5 announcement of the “Monuments Project” stated that the aim of the initiative is to “transform the way our country’s histories are told in public spaces” and provide inclusion “of those who have often been denied” such recognition.

Richmond has the potential to be a major beneficiary given that it had one of the largest collections of the racist statues on public display and received national and international attention in taking them down.

The city also has long been on the Mellon Foundation’s radar. The foundation has previously provided grants to the Richmond Symphony and other arts and humanities groups in the city.

“The War Horse,” a bronze horse sculpture designed by Tessa Pullan of England in memory of the 1.5 million horses and mules that were killed, wounded or died from disease in the Civil War, was given in 1997 to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture by Paul Mellon, the son of Andrew W. Mellon and a founder of the Mellon Foundation.

City Hall would be expected to apply for the Mellon Foundation grant, but so far, there has been no confirmation of such plans to gain financial help with the projected multimillion dol- lar cost to develop replacement statues featuring Richmond heroes.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney and members of the administration have not responded to requests for comment on the Mellon initiative or about plans to try to tap the money the nation’s largest arts and humanities philanthropy is making available.

The administration and City Council have not put in place a process to develop recommendations for replacing the Confederate statues and possibly the pedestals, although plenty of ideas bubbled up on social media while the statues were being removed.

For now, City Council and its staff appear to be more focused on selling off 10 of the 12 city-owned statues that were taken down.

The council, without explanation, has declined to dispose of the statues of Confederate Gen. Williams C. Wickham and of the Confederate unit known as the Richmond Howitzers. The council also has not considered the fate of the statue of Christopher Columbus that was pulled down by crowds during recent protests.

The Mellon Foundation began its initiative by awarding a $4 million grant to Monument Lab, a public art organization based in Philadelphia. According to Mellon, the organization works with artists and activists in communities across the country on public projects and art installations focused on social justice.