The Board of Mayor and Aldermen are getting professional help to find a site for a multipurpose recreation complex.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said Tuesday the board will have a special called meeting possibly Friday to discuss hiring a consultant to examine potential sites for the proposed complex and help with the project’s design.

The announcement came just as the board adjourned its meeting Tuesday morning, and almost a week after the site and design committee for the proposed complex learned only about 55 acres of the city’s 200-acre Fisher Ferry property on Fisher Ferry Road is useable for recreation.

“We’ve reached a point where we need to get professional help,” South Ward Alderman Willis Thompson said. “We need someone who is familiar with designing and building sports complexes.” Thompson and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield co-chair the site and design committee, which includes County supervisors John Arnold and Bill Lauderdale and county administrator John Smith.

Thompson said he has talked with an architecture firm that develops sports complexes but would not name the company.

“What we need is a company to come in and look at all our sites and do what they call a SWOT study — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats,” he said. “They will do a marketing survey and tell us what we need for our market. That way, we can find the best place to do this and what we need. The (ad hoc) committee did a very good job and gave us the grandfather of complexes, but we may not need everything that was recommended in their report based on what we already have.”

The city’s ad hoc committee on recreation in its Dec. 15 report to the city recommended a multipurpose sports complex on 270 acres of land that included baseball and softball fields, 15 soccer fields, 10 tennis courts, basketball and volleyball courts and a multipurpose building with indoor pool.

Flaggs appointed the site and design committee and a feasibility, finance and marketing committee for the project. He and Thompson have supported the Fisher Ferry property as a potential site for the complex, and building an access road to the property from either U.S. 61 South or Dana Road, which is north of the site. According a recent study by Stantec, the county’s engineering firm of record which was hired by the city to look at both alternatives, the Dana Road access plan project would cost $1.8 million.

Since its purchase in 2003 for $325,000, the Fisher Ferry property has been plagued by problems that eventually led to the previous Board of Mayor and Aldermen writing it off as a potential site. Site work began in January 2009 only to be slowed and halted by delays for wetlands permits, redeveloping plans to avoid wetlands areas along Hatcher Bayou, which runs along the property’s northern boundary and has a history of flooding.

The wetlands problems, coupled with access to the property and the diversion in 2009 of money from a 2007 bond issue from the park to the Washington Street bridge project, eventually forced city officials to end the project.

Besides the $325,000 purchase price for the property, the city has spent $2.7 million for preliminary plans, engineering and dirt work. The city has spent an additional $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 interest.

On the agenda:

Meeting Tuesday, the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen:

• Recognized the following employees on their anniversaries with the city: Marilyn Rose Edwards, water treatment plant, 20 years, and James Hicks, gas plant, 10 years.

• Presented trophies to the winners in the following categories of the Vicksburg Main Street Mardi Gras parade: best in show, Danny Hearn Trucking; best in business, Sheffield Rental; best non-Profit, Vicksburg District Corps of Engineers; best throws, Mississippi Paranormal Research Institute; most original, Robin Lea State Farm; most enthusiastic, McAllister’s Deli; best recreational club, BDBC ATV.

• Approved a proclamation honoring New England Patriots defensive back Malcolm Butler and declaring Tuesday through Sunday “Malcolm Butler Week.”

• Approved spending $600 for radio advertising promoting the city on stations K-Hits 104.5, River 101 and 92.7 “The Touch” during the week of RiverFest.

• Approved a request from St. James No. 1 Church to block streets at the intersection of Jefferson and Adams streets between 2 and 5 p.m. March 22 for the pastor’s ninth year appreciation program.

• Approved a request from Irene Ward to block Grove Street and Third North Street, Poplar Street and Fifth North Street and the corners of Clay and Fillmore streets from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a Vicksburg Small Business Festival March 14.

• Adopted the revised Vicksburg Police Department policy involving transporting arrested people.

• Approved the municipal compliance questionnaire for fiscal 2014. The questionnaire is required annually by the State Auditor’s Office.

• Approved the following additions to the employee driving list: Jalen Williams, Zachary Trim, Thomas MCalpin, water maintenance department; Corey Smith, community development.

• Authorized Mayor George Flaggs Jr. to sign hangar leases with Timothy Trotter and Farmland Services Inc. Both leases are for $200 a month.