NATCHEZ, Miss. – City officials are seeking a $500,000 loan from the state to demolish the downtown Natchez Fry building to advance plans for the site becoming a parking lot that’s considered essential for redeveloping the Eola hotel.
The Board of Aldermen agreed Tuesday to apply for the loan from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. The agency is eager to provide the low-interest government loan, said the environmental engineer hired by the city to help manage the asbestos-laden Fry building’s clean-up and demolition.
“DEQ recognizes the importance of what’s going with the hotel up there and they’re going to be pushing hard to get this done,” said Trey Hess.
Planning has been underway by private developers to restore the Eola and reopen it. It closed in 2014. Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson and aldermen have been wrestling with the adjacent Fry building since the city acquired it in 2021 to tear down in conjunction with the Eola redevelopment plans.
Razing the Fry building is considered a key for developers’ long-stalled plans to renovate the Eola next door. The Fry building site at Pearl and Franklin streets is contaminated with hazardous asbestos and other pollutants, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report. The EPA awarded the city a $1.1 million grant in 2023 for cleaning up the pollution.
The DEQ loan the city board voted Tuesday to apply for would pay for demolition costs. The agency’s so-called Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund is programmed for sites contaminated with hazardous substances that can be rehabilitated and redeveloped for commercial purposes.
Since the deteriorating Fry building was donated by its previous owners to Natchez in 2021, city officials have been planning its demolition to build a parking lot in its place for the Eola and downtown visitors.
The Eola – built in 1927 – has continued to dilapidate while renovations stalled as developers seek funds and plan its designs. Inflation has been a major impediment that has ballooned construction costs to about $30 million, Eola developer Hayes Dent said last August. However, he predicted then that financing would be assured by March so renovations can begin and take about 14 months. This comes as the building approaches being 100 years old in 2027.
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