NATCHEZ — The City of Natchez is set to receive $350,000 in funding to replace the historic tollbooth colonnade on the bluff.

City Engineer David Gardner reported to the Natchez Board of Aldermen at its meeting Wednesday the city had received $150,000 from the Mississippi Development Authority. The city will also receive $200,000 from the Mississippi Department of Transportation for the colonnade.

The funding requires a 20-percent cost match from the city.

The project will involve replacing the columns of the colonnade, which was officially approved as a Mississippi landmark in January 2012.

Historic Natchez Foundation Executive Director Mimi Miller said the colonnade was erected in 1940 as part of the construction of the original Mississippi River bridge.

A tollbooth, at which drivers paid 10 cents to enter Louisiana or Mississippi, sat between the colonnades, Miller said.

The restoration project has a substantial cost, Brown said. The last estimate of the cost done several years ago was approximately $150,000, he said, and only included repairs to the colonnade, not replacement.

The colonnade restoration has been an ongoing project for the city for years. Gardner proposed in 2011 rehabilitating the colonnade in conjunction with the former railroad depot to make the city’s application for MDOT funding more competitive.

The renovation of the former railroad depot is now part of the city’s project in conjunction with Alcorn State and Mississippi State universities to relocate the Natchez Farmers Market to the bluff and operate the depot as a product development center and office and meeting space.