Convention-goers may not have to hunt as hard for parking spots in the coming months.

The city is advertising for bids to pave the grassy area on the corner of Franklin and Wall streets to turn into extra parking for the convention center.

“It was an area we had reserved for parking anyway,” City Engineer David Gardner said Monday.

When the convention center was built, the city didn’t know how much parking would be needed, so they held off paving that area, he said.

“Now, (the city) has decided to go ahead and pave it,” he said. “It’s a good problem to have.”

The extra parking is necessary, Gardner said, because the lot on which the new Country Inn and Suites is being built used to serve as a temporary gravel parking lot.

“Although it won’t take care of all our parking needs, it’s a step in the right direction,” he said.

Gardner said the city wouldn’t know how much it would cost until they received the bids.

Once the bids are in, workers will have to make sure the lot drains properly before they pour concrete and paint stripes.

“Given all that, it’s probably going to be about four weeks or so of work to get that done, depending on good weather,” Gardner said.

The new parking lot will add roughly 30 parking spaces. The gravel lot on which the hotel is being built could park up to 100 vehicles.

Further parking additions might be something to look at in the future, Gardner said.

“We’ll just take it one step at a time and see what our parking needs are,” he said. “Hopefully, this will help a lot, and the hotel will have parking, too.”

Funding for the lot will likely come out of either the city’s general fund or funds received when the city sold the Canal Street property to the hotel developers, Tourism Director Walter Tipton said.

The location of the new lot is a plus, he said.

“It’s a good strategy,” Tipton said. “What that lot does for us is also provide parking for the community center. It’s located in such a way that it can be utilized by both.”

Even if parking were still tight after the new lot was finished, downtown Natchez would still be in a better situation than some larger cities, Tipton said.

“It has a feel to me that parking is still more readily available in Natchez than other places like Baton Rouge or New Orleans,” he said. “We’re still a lot more accessible than some of those places.”