The City of Vicksburg would be dealing a blow to downtown beautification efforts if it was allowed to build a metal warehouse across from the Vicksburg Convention Center on Depot Street, the Vicksburg Board of Architectural Review voted Tuesday.

The board unanimously denied Purchasing Director Tim Smith’s request to erect a windowless, 3,750-square-foot storage building at 601 Depot St. — where the city purchased and demolished a metal warehouse about six years ago during its urban renewal initiative.

“I think the general population of the city would find it ludicrous to have torn down a metal building and then put back a metal building,” said board member Betty Bullard. “This is the way we take one step forward and two steps back, and we can’t keep doing that.”

Smith said the building is needed to store 940 crowd control barricades recently purchased for $67,680 with a federal Justice Assistance Grant, as well as Christmas and other downtown decorations. The barriers are temporarily being stored in the basement of the convention center and other city storage sites, said Smith, and will be used for the first time during Saturday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade.

Bullard and fellow board member Tom Pharr suggested the city build the storage warehouse at 101 N. Washington St., behind The Klondyke, where the city stores water and gas supplies in another city-owned warehouse.

Smith said he would look into the North Washington Street option, but noted the area routinely floods after heavy rainfalls and suggested the city could be held accountable by federal auditors if equipment were ruined. If a storage warehouse cannot be built, Smith said the city likely will store the barriers in a pair of semi trailers, which would have to be purchased and would be less convenient.

“With all of the things we have developing along that corridor, I think we would be shooting ourselves in the foot to — just from a convenience standpoint — to put a large warehouse building back in the mix when we’ve worked so hard to get that out of the mix,” Pharr said. 

Board member Sue Seratt also noted that architectural review board guidelines state any new construction in the city’s historic district must blend with neighboring architectural examples, and said the metal warehouse would not fit the description. Board members present Tuesday were Bullard, Pharr, Seratt, Thurman Nelson, Charlie Gholson, Toni Lanford-Ferguson and Troy Weeks.

*

Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com