The promoter of the planned transportation museum downtown will add his “2 cents” to discussions that will, ultimately, lead to the selection of an architect who will draw designs to meet the approval of the city and two state agencies, Mayor Laurence Leyens said in a Monday meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Four architects submitted sealed bids with statements of qualifications to city officials, who accepted the bids.

Lamar Roberts, director of the Vicksburg Battlefield Museum and an advocate for the transportation museum in Vicksburg since 2005, said, although he will have no vote, he will be present when the city’s review board meets. Roberts heads the Vicksburg Transportation Museum Inc., the nonprofit group that has collected money and exhibits for the museum. He is also a member of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau board.

“I will just be there for my input on the job,” he said.

The four architectural firms, Canizaro Cawthon Davis Architects of Jackson, Waycaster Architects of Natchez, Belinda Stewart Architects of Eupora and Albert & Associates Architects of Hattiesburg, all have worked on projects with the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, one of two agencies funding the downtown depot project through a $53,900 grant. The Mississippi Department of Transportation has also handed over a $1.65 million grant, funding about 80 percent of the project that is to have displays of planes, trains, boats and cars as they relate to local history. The museum will be in the old Levee Street Depot, which is being leased by the city to the museum’s board.

“They’re all well-known around the state,” Roberts said of the architects submitting bids. “I think any of them will be good.”

A review board appointed to make decisions about the depot and other buildings will be retooled in coming weeks, said city inspector Victor Gray-Lewis, because of personnel changes in the city.

Once an architect firm is selected by the review board, approval from MDAH and MDOT is also required. The chosen firm, then, has 90 days to prepare drawings, which also have to meet the approval of city officials and both funding agencies. Bids for contractors, who will make necessary repairs and renovations to the 100-year-old building, will be advertised for 30 to 45 days, Roberts said. MDAH officials will select a contractor that is qualified to work on historic buildings. Work, which will total between $2 million to $3 million, is expected to take about 14 months, Roberts said.

Originally scheduled to open next month, the museum’s opening could take another two years. Roberts said persistent forward movement could mean a spring 2008 opening.

“If everybody would get on the stick and get a move on it,” the early opening would be possible, he said. “But, they have to get on it and stay with it.”

The museum has received about $2 million of donations and the group has raised almost half of about $330,000 needed to match the approved grants. Only about $1,500 of that has come from private donors in Vicksburg, which is in addition to a $20,000 contribution from the Warren County Board of Supervisors. No city funds are budgeted for the project.

Sixty percent of the display items, which will include railroad and riverboat displays, the Central Mississippi Aviation Museum, model train cars and engines for an HO-scale model railroad display, about 1,500 volumes for a library and an extensive collection of riverboat photographs, will be available at the museum for at least 20 years, a decision made between museum and city officials in October.

The depot, former station and offices for Illinois Central Railroad, is amidst an already bustling tourism corridor, where historic floodwall murals and the Art Park at Catfish Row will soon be joined by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Interpretive Center and a handicapped-accessible park.