NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen are seeking contractors for a variety of construction projects paid largely with state and federal funds to improve street drainage in north Natchez, enhance sidewalks in the center of downtown Natchez and renovate the city-owned Auburn mansion.
The Natchez Board of Aldermen on Tuesday agreed to get prices from bidding contractors for drainage projects planned for Concord Avenue and West Stiers Lane. The state Legislature last year gave Natchez $1 million for construction work needed in selected neighborhoods to correct problems causing street flooding when it rains.
Concord Avenue is near Martin Luther King Street and the old Armstrong tire plant. West Stiers Lane is between the Natchez City Cemetery and MLK Street. The $1 million Natchez got in 2023 is from Mississippi’s Local Improvement Projects Fund the Legislature created to allocate money from the American Rescue Plan Act that the U.S. Congress enacted in 2021 to help states recover from the economic impact of the COVID pandemic.
Natchez aldermen are also seeking contractors wanting to do the downtown sidewalk improvements slated for the 100 block of North Commerce Street. This section is envisioned as an arts district with the old Ritz theater as its centerpiece. Natchez in 2022 got nearly $470,000 in federal funds for this funneled through the state Department of Transportation.
This money from the federal Transportation Alternative Program is being combined with city funds to make sidewalks more handicapped accessible and to install new sidewalk lighting and light poles on the Commerce Street block between Main and Franklin.
Aldermen on Tuesday also agreed to get contractors’ bids for renovations planned for Auburn, the city-owned antebellum house in Duncan Park. Work to be done includes repairing the 212-year-old mansion’s front columns and restoring the adjacent billiard hall, built in the 1830s. The Duncan Park pavilion is also included in the project.
Funds are coming from city coffers and the state Department of Archives & History, which awarded Natchez $234,000 for this in 2022.
Built in 1812, Auburn is one of the earliest mansions constructed in Natchez and the first with classical architectural designs, according to the Historic Natchez Foundation, which oversees the house and tourist attraction along with house renovators Laine and Kevin Berry. The Federal-style house with its Roman Ionic columns has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the federal government. Auburn was donated to the city by the Duncan family in 1910 along with the adjoining 203 acres that’s now Duncan Park.
In another city construction project, restoration continues of the old Broadway Street train depot, which is being converted into a visitors center. It will include a theater for showing tourists video presentations about Natchez. Aldermen on Tuesday reviewed plans for the electrical outlets to be installed for the projector and window shades needed to block out sunlight.
Plans call for the circa 1910 railroad depot’s renovation to be done by spring in time for the annual Spring Pilgrimage. The city board contracted Wilmar Construction Co. of Vidalia in November for $247,400 to rebuild the depot’s interior for Visit Natchez, the city’s tourism agency.
This comes after a decade of various delays that have left the historic building a gutted, empty shell.
With Natchez receiving a $144,000 historic preservation grant from the state last year, the city was able to move forward to finish refurbishing the exterior and outfit the interior for a visitors information center.
The former passenger-train depot is a state-designated Mississippi landmark the city has been struggling to renovate as far back as 2012. After nearly $1 million was spent in state and city funds to restore the exterior in 2016, the building has remained empty as plans for getting a developer to complete the interior’s restoration stalled.
Getting the Craftsman-style train station restored has been a key part of the city’s master plan for revitalizing downtown Natchez and the bluff area overlooking the Mississippi River.
Hopes were raised in 2019 when the city leased the building to movie producers Tate Taylor and John Norris to resurrect it into a restaurant and entertainment venue, but those plans were aborted in 2022 when that proved to be unfeasible.
I wonder if the contractors have to be approved by the MDAH for preservation work.