A grant to fund improvements to a never-occupied building at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex will have to be retooled because the money was intended for a business that decided not to expand in Vicksburg.

The money, sought by the county through the Warren County Port Commission and awarded by the multistate Delta Regional Authority, totaled $142,335.

The commission manages public industrial properties for the county and was to enhance parking, points of entry and roads into the &#8220spec building” at the Flowers site.

The award was announced by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, in a release last week. It was to entice a medical information management firm to set up a satellite operation here.

The company, Dallas-based PHNS, was one of two companies that last spring were interested in the shell of a building, constructed more than a decade ago. At the time, the idea of having a building ready for industrial prospects was seen as a plus, but the building has not sold.

Warren County officials said PHNS has decided to stick with its current bases of operation, which include offices in Baton Rouge and Anaheim, Calif.

&#8220I’m not sure if the money could be shifted over,” District 1 Supervisor David McDonald said, adding that supervisors will discuss alternative avenues of securing the grant money with Thompson today.

Calls to PHNS officials were not returned.

In addition to Warren County, three other counties in Thompson’s 2nd Congressional District received portions of the infrastructure grants that totaled over $600,000.

Claiborne County will receive $100,000 to fund repairs and stabilization to an embankment on Frank Headley Road. Hazlehurst in Copiah County will receive $250,000 to fund roadway access and utilities capability to that city’s industrial park. Tunica County Airport Apron Expansion will receive $112,427 to improve aircraft access to the north side of the airport.

The Delta Regional Council is a federal-state partnership serving 240 counties and parishes in eight southern and midwestern states, led by a federal chairman and the governors of each participating state.

Separately, supervisors will also discuss with Thompson the status of federal funding for several county infrastructure projects.

Some of those projects are the extension of South Frontage Road across rail tracks to Vicksburg Factory Outlets, a feasibility study examining the construction of an elevated road at Kings Point, an expansion of the Port of Vicksburg and a look at funds to repair pier sloughing under the U.S. 80 bridge across the Mississippi River.

Thompson’s position as the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee could prove helpful in efforts to provide funding on those and other local needs, supervisors said.