NATCHEZ — The call for contractors to rehabilitate the Canal Street colonnades has been put out with the project expected to be completed in early 2015.

City Engineer David Gardener said work on the colonnades would start in September or early October after the contractors are chosen.

Advertisements were published last Sunday and will be again this Sunday. By law, the city cannot start taking bids until 15 days after the second advertisement.

Once contractors are found, Gardener said the city must wait for Mississippi Department of Transportation approval to begin refurbishing.

The colonnades are located outside the Natchez Visitor Center, and they were approved as a state landmark in January 2012.

The construction project should take 95 working days, putting the end date into early 2015.

The total budget for the rehabilitation, Gardner said, is $350,000, which includes construction, engineering, testing and any other cost.

$200,000 came from left over MDOT funding. The $150,000 came from the Mississippi Development Authority for restoration, Gardener said.

The colonnade structure was part of a toll booth, and it was the only way to have access to the bridge before John R. Junkin Road was built, said the Executive Director of the Historic Natchez Foundation Mimi Miller.

“(The plaza) was designed to reflect the classicism of Natchez,” Miller said. “They could have just built a toll booth and take your money, but when people think of Natchez they thought of big white columns.“

All the construction has to be done by Mississippi Department of Achieves and History guidelines, and any parts of the colonnades in good condition will be saved, Gardener said.

MDAH’s guidelines prioritize repairing existing structures over replacing parts of the structure when ever possible.

“You have to hand remove the wood,” Gardener said. “Some of it is good, some of it is not, but 95 percent of the wood will need to be replaced.”

Rotten wood will be replaced with No. 1 treated southern pine, which is durable and won’t need maintenance for a long time, Gardener said.

Gardener said there is also a possibility electrical and mortar work will have to be done before a fresh coat of paint is put on the landmark.

Gardener said the work is fairly intensive. The architrave, which is the connecting piece on the tops of the columns, is in fairly good condition. Only sections will need to be replaced.

“When you go in and replace all the wood, you have to do it in such a way that it doesn’t jeopardize the structural integrity of the architrave,” Gardener said. “You have to do it in stages so you have support for the main architrave at the top.”

Construction should only spill over into Canal Street traffic when equipment is being moved into the visitor center, Gardener said.

“It’ll all be done correctly and properly,” Gardener said. “So when the project is done, we’ll have a colonnade that’ll be as good, or better, as it was when it was new.”