The parking lots at Halls Ferry and Bazinsky parks will be getting resurfaced.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Thursday awarded the project to Central Asphalt of Vicksburg, which was the lowest of three contractors bidding on the project to resurface both lots, expand the Bazinsky parking lot, add lighting to the parking area, and stripe the parking lots.

Bids on the project were opened at the board’s Monday meeting. Central bid $714,573.54 to do the job, while Warren and Warren Paving LLC of Jackson bid $891,940.22, and Hemphill Construction of Florence, $823,057.83.

City accounting director Doug Whittington said the bid was under the city’s budget for the project.

“About $807,000 of the original $870,000 (set side for the project) remains,” he said.

Halls Ferry and Bazinsky parks are heavily used for baseball and softball leagues, and tennis activity, and the parking lots are in bad shape with broken and cracking asphalt. The parking lots were included in the city’s paving plan funded by a $9.2 million capital improvements bond issue.

In another matter, the board accepted an $81,490 bid from Fordice Constriction Co. to build a canopy on the west side of the Vicksburg Police Station where prisoners are delivered for court.

Fordice’s bid was the lowest of two bids submitted to the city. Robertson Construction Co. of Ridgeland, $113,640.58.

Fordice’s bid was under the city’s $85,000 budget for the project.

“So Santa Claus came a couple of days early,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said.

4 In other action, the board approved the purchase and installation of a historical marker honoring Frank Crump, a Civil Rights activist and a teacher at Rosa A. Temple High School. The marker’s $2,100 cost will come from the mayor’s discretionary fund.

The dedication ceremony for the marker will be 11:30 a.m. Jan. 16, Flaggs said.