The Board of Mayor and Aldermen are expected to hire an architectural firm to prepare plans for improvements at the Vicksburg Convention Center when it meets Tuesday.

According to its agenda, the board is expected to sign a contract totaling $118,500 with Jackson-based Cook Farr Douglas Lemons Architects & Engineers to prepare designs and specifications to replace the convention center escalator, upgrade its elevator and repair a retaining wall at the convention center.

The escalator has been a longtime problem for the convention center, costing about $1,500 a month to maintain, and $50,000 to repair in 2015.

The 20-year-old retaining wall was built during the convention center’s construction to prevent the slope the center was built on and Mulberry Street from sloughing off because of erosion.

In 2014, the board signed a $6,240 contract with Burns Cooley Dennis Inc., a Jackson-based geotechnical consulting firm, to examine the wall and determine if any work needed to be done on the aging wall.

According to a letter from the consultants sent to City Attorney Nancy Thomas in 2014, a report filed by Kenner-based Gillen Engineering after an inspection of the wall indicated “corroded steel elements and rotting wood lagging and possible potential loss of passive support behind the wall from siltation and piping of soils through the wall.”