NATCHEZ &045; Even if a bond bill including $10 million to improve building facades in downtown Natchez doesn’t pass this year, much good has still come from the effort.

That’s according to Mimi Miller, executive director of the Historic Natchez Foundation which, along with Mayor Phillip West, had pushed hard for the money.

The legislation died when a conference committee didn’t sign off on it, local legislators confirmed Tuesday. &uot;But we still have this,&uot; Miller said hopefully.

The &uot;this&uot; to which Miller was referring was a book West asked her to compile of historic photographs and drawings of downtown buildings to use as a reference when making facade grants.

And that book is worth its weight in gold, said Miller, who is 80 percent through with compiling the book and hopes to have it finished by May. Of 60 properties identified as key downtown buildings, &uot;we’ve taken drawings and photos of almost every single one and created pages on them,&uot; Miller said.

Having historic photos and drawings in one place means those wishing to locate a business downtown can easily find what their building looked like at a past date so that look can be authentically duplicated.

The Economic Development Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Development Association and real estate firms will also be given copies of the book to help them assist business prospects.

But the book also has uses few could have foreseen. For example, when producers of the HGTV show &uot;Dream Drives&uot; wanted a location in Natchez, Miller recommended Washington Street.

And when they wanted to see actual photos of the buildings on that street, Miller was able to pull them from the book pages on her computer and e-mail them to the producers in minutes.

The result was a show that has been filmed and rerun on the network several times since then, resulting in national publicity for Natchez.

So while no other funding sources for the faSade grant program have been found &045; leaving the foundation to wait until the 2006 legislative session &045; Miller said it hasn’t been a total loss.

The book of photos and drawings itself, she said, &uot;has been an invaluable tool, more than we ever thought it would be.&uot;