NATCHEZ, Miss. – A redo is needed for the newly repaved Homochitto and Canal Streets after defective asphalt was applied on several sections last month.
Meeting Tuesday with Natchez aldermen, Mayor Dan Gibson said they will “get it done correctly and we’re going to get it completed soon.”
However, the asphalt supplier has been closed since Christmas as cold weather and other factors have crippled its plant’s production abilities. “We have challenges and we need to ask for patience from the public,” Gibson said.
Most of the defective asphalt was laid on Homochitto Street lacking a binding ingredient to ensure it adheres to the surface, Gibson said.
The mayor indicated it’ll be February before new asphalt will be available, but “we’re going to get it repaired soon with better weather on the way.”
APAC’s Adams County plant produces the asphalt and Theobald Construction Services of Vicksburg is doing the street work.
Gibson said city officials are withholding payments for the Canal-Homochitto street project, which has a contracted cost of $1.1 million. Work began first on Canal in November and soon thereafter on Homochitto for two of the busiest thoroughfares in Natchez.
Another major city transit project has been completed to stabilize the Canal Street bridge. About $626,000 worth of work done by Natchez-based Dozer strengthened the bridge’s undergirding. Even with the repairs, which began in October, it remains uncertain if the much-traveled bridge will be considered sturdy enough for heavy vehicles, Gibson said Tuesday. Engineers have inspected the bridge repairs and will soon report if buses and large trucks can cross the span.
City officials in December 2023 began prohibiting them from traveling on the bridge after corrosion was discovered on at least three of the nine steel girders supporting the bridge, which was built in 1960.
Long-term planning is underway for finding funds for building a replacement bridge that Gibson said could cost about $8 million and take three or more years to do.
In other discussions Tuesday, the mayor discouraged aldermen from bringing up the downtown traffic and parking study they authorized last year to consider the pros and cons of various changes, such as making Main Street two-way instead of one-way and having diagonal parking in place of the current parallel spaces.
Noting “some concerns” have been expressed about the traffic-study consultant’s recommended changes, Gibson said he’s reluctant to publicly air out suggestions that could put people “all up in arms” about proposals that don’t appear imminent. He said any consideration of downtown traffic rerouting and parking reconfiguration should be put on the backburner until streets get new pavements. The mayor said a company has proposed a method to resurface streets cheaper to be more feasible than before.
The mayor and city aldermen last April contracted an Atlanta-based urban planning firm to do the traffic to encompass downtown Natchez west to east from Broadway to Martin Luther King streets and south to north from Orleans to Madison streets. The study’s contracted cost: $29,200.
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