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NATCHEZ — Natchez aldermen accepted the low bid of AJ Construction of $5,188,331.86 for the city’s street improvement project.

That means the long-anticipated city roads paving project can move forward. That was in doubt as recently as mid-March, when only one bidder submitted a bid to contract for the project, and that bid was $3 million more than budgeted funds.

On Tuesday, a representative of Volker Engineering, which is overseeing the engineering work on the road overlay project, said with the acceptance of the new low bidder, the project should begin within a month.

In late 2022, aldermen issued $6 million in bonds to be used to resurface a proposed 75 streets in Natchez. However, in March, the lone bid from APAC Asphalt Co. had to be rejected by aldermen because it was more than budgeted.

Since that time, aldermen cut the list of roads to be paved from 75 to 45 streets, which led to more interest in the project.

“This is definitely a better scenario than we had two months ago,” Gibson said. “This is the largest expenditure on a single road improvement project in the city in many years.”

APAC Asphalt also presented a bid for the project of $5.2 million.