Warren County Port Commission members have decided to seek proposals to sell the Ceres Plantation House and have it moved.

Wayne Mansfield, the commission’s executive director, told the board “about 20 or 30” requests for general information had fielded by his office in the wake that the commission was once again pondering the future of the house, parts of which date to the 1830s.

The industrial park near the Big Black River in east Warren County was created on farmland. The house came with the purchase in 1986 and has had assorted uses since.

“We’ve been swamped with a lot of phone calls and inquiries about the house,” Mansfield said. His recommendation to sell the house and demolish a smaller pool house between the main structure and two large barns passed unanimously. The barns would remain on the property.

Of all calls fielded, about three to five offers involve people who want to move the house for personal use, project manager Katrina Shirley said. Mansfield insisted a specific deadline for movement and demolition appear in the formal request for proposals.

The two-story, six-bedroom onetime farm house was a haven for women and children escaping the city after the Siege of Vicksburg. Fant Nursery operated on the property for nine years until 2007, when a dispute over rent and maintenance costs forced the business to close. No commercial development took place at the site under later renters, evicted in October. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History had considered the house for landmark status, but decided not enough of the structure’s original architecture remained.

Taking on the panel’s offer on the house and surrounding structures promises to be costly for whoever makes a winning proposal. Those in the business of moving large structures have theorized the cost at about $3 million. Surrounding land geared to industrial development at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex is listed at $15,000 an acre, or $28.5 million, in the Mississippi Development Authority’s online directory.

Since Warren County purchased the 1,290-acre site in 1986, the plantation house’s stretch of property has been eyed for development of a truck stop through the years. A modernization of the interchange itself is a key to any commercial development there, officials have said.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com