An artist’s rendering of what a potential multipurpose recreation complex would look like will be available for inspection before the city’s ad hoc recreation committee presents its final report to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, the committee’s chairman said.

Omar Nelson did not give a date when the rendering, which will be prepared by the city’s mapping department, would be ready, but said it would be available to the public before the committee presents its report to the board on Dec. 31.

He mentioned the rendering after the Rev. James Bowman said he wanted to see a plan of the project during a Monday meeting of the committee and local ministers to discuss recreation.

“You need to give us something we can see,” Bowman said. “Something that will show us what you want to do.”

“We will have a rendering for people to see, and it will give you an idea of what a sports complex will look like,” Nelson said. “When it is ready, we will invite you all to come and look at it and give us your opinions.”

The meeting with the ministers was designed to answer their questions about recreation in the city and enlist their support for a multipurpose recreation complex for the city. Ten ministers attended the meeting at the City Hall Annex.

“We need your voice in your church, we need your voice in the community, we need you to call public officials in the city and county and urge their support. We want you to tell us what the people want with regards to recreation,” Nelson said.

He described the committee’s efforts so far in developing information for its report, adding members have met with park directors from Vidalia, Ridgeland and designers of Brandon’s Shiloh Park. He said the committee on Oct. 12 toured parks in Clinton, Ridgeland and Madison and met with recreation officials from those communities.

He said he has also addressed civic clubs, adding, “every time I go to an organization, the first thing they say is, ‘why can’t we have a sports complex?’”

Discussing the proposed recreation complex, Nelson said sports like baseball, softball and soccer would bring people to the facility, but “it’s not just about sports. We want an environment that people can use. We want a setting where churches can have events at the facility.”

Nelson said that because of its location, Vicksburg could draw people from Louisiana and neighboring Mississippi counties for tournaments and tourism.

“Vicksburg is in a prime location,” he said. “If we can bring people in, they will eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels, and increase the tourism at the (Vicksburg National) Military Park.”

His comments brought questions from the ministers about the park’s location and size, including one by the Rev. Dexter Jones whether the committee would consider including information from a study done in 2007 by USA Partners of Florida involving sports complex project at Halls Ferry Park. The study was shelved after the project proved unfeasible.

“Are you going to use those ideas in the study or throw it off the table and use something else?” he asked. “It looks like what we’re doing is recreating the wheel.”

Nelson said the committee would look at the report and see what it could use.

Jones also asked the committee to consider location carefully, adding, “if you put it in the south, then kids in the north won’t be able to use it. If you put it in north, then kids in the south won’t be able to use it. You need to have this where everyone has access.”

Nelson said the decision where the complex is located will be up to the board, if it approves the committee’s report and decides to move ahead with a recreation complex. And two big issues will have to be addressed — how to pay for it and whether Warren County officials will get on board.

“I firmly believe all our officials are for it,” he said, “the biggest question is, ‘How much is it going to cost?’

“I hope the city and county officials put their money where their mouth is,” he said. “It’s a difficult decision that these officials are going to have to make.”

The committee was appointed in May by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to examine the city’s recreation programs and present recommendations to improve the overall program over the next five years by Dec. 31.

The committee first met on June 5, and began discussions that indicated a move toward a multipurpose recreation complex, marking the third time a recreation complex for the city has been discussed.

In 2003, the city bought the 200-acre Fisher Ferry Road property near St. Michael Catholic Church for a sports complex for $325,000. The project was abandoned in 2009 after an additional $2.7 million had been spent for preliminary plans, engineering and dirt work. The city has spent $55,343 since August 2012 to replace the concrete in the drainage chutes on the site with riprap and grout under a Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality mandate.

The board in March put the property up for sale for a 90-day period, but there was no response.

Efforts to remake Halls Ferry Park into a $25 million sportsplex fell apart when the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality frowned on the project’s suitability because, as known throughout the process, part of the park was built on what was once the city’s landfill. Separate pieces of land in south Warren County totaling 145 acres owned by the Aquila Group, which had proposed to build and manage the fields and sports facilities, went to tax sale Aug. 26.

In 2007, the city board hired USA Partners Sports Alliance of Jacksonville, Fla., for $250,000 to determine the feasibility of a proposed $25 million sports complex at Halls Ferry Park, including Bazinsky Field.

Under an agreement between the city and USA Partners, which was hired after the Aquila Group approached the city, the company would return the $250,000 feasibility study cost to the city if the complex did not materialize. The city sued USA when the company did not return the money, and received a judgment against the company.

As of Tuesday, more than seven years later, the city has received $8,909 from the company and is trying to collect more, City Attorney Nancy Thomas said.

Former mayor Paul Winfield in 2012 promoted an estimated $20 million sports complex funded by a half-cent sales tax. Mayor George Flaggs Jr., who was a state legislator at the time and had a hand in bringing a potential tax increase to a vote, opposed the project because there were too many uncertainties with the project. The project died when the chairman of the House Local and Private Committee refused to introduce the bill.