[2/10/04]Bids for a downtown art park came in Monday nearly double what city officials had budgeted for the project, and now planners will have to go back to the drawing board.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen received three bids for the project budgeted at $2.3 million. The lowest bid was for $3.9 million from Camo Construction of Vidalia, La.

“We’re going to have to make some changes,” said Mayor Laurence Leyens.

The project area is between Grove and Clay streets along Levee Street. Work was expected to begin this spring and be completed by July.

The plan includes a steamboat playground with interactive displays showing the history of river transportation, a pilot house, bells and other steamboat-related features. Other improvements will be a public bathroom, benches and landscaping.

That area today is across railroad tracks from the City Front murals and is vacant since the removal of the former McGuffie Steel building. The parts from the sternwheeler Sprague are also kept there and are expected to be incorporated into the park.

The record-setting towboat burned at its moorings in Vicksburg on April 15, 1974.

Plans for downtown near the park also include a railroad museum at the former Levee Street Depot, which the city has already purchased from a private owner, and an amphitheater between Washington and Levee streets. The depot restoration began earlier this year, but plans for the amphitheater are on hold because of a pending eminent domain case over property at Jackson and Levee streets.

The park project will be funded from the $17.5 million bond issue the administration authorized in November 2001. In September, the city wrapped up a $2.6 million reconstruction of downtown Washington Street, and the $5.6 million urban renewal project is ongoing.