NATCHEZ — The Mississippi River Bridge at Natchez could soon be getting a fresh coat of paint.

Mayor Butch Brown said the Mississippi Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration have preliminarily approved painting the bridge.

The project will involve repainting the bridge a new color. No determination has been made on the color, Brown said.

The color choices for the bridge include a variety of options. For example, Brown said, the bridge at St. Francisville, La., is painted yellow.

“Colors for bridges is something departments of transportation are doing across the country,” Brown said.

Since the project is in the early planning stages, Brown said, an exact timeline and cost of repainting the bridge is not available.

“It’s a very expensive gift they will be giving us,” Brown said. “The cost will be in the millions.”

Funding for the project would come through MDOT and FHWA, Brown said. The Louisiana Department of Transportation would also be involved in the project.

Brown said the goal is to have the bridge painted by the tricentennial celebration beginning Jan 1, 2016.

MDOT spokesman Michael Flood said details about the bridge-painting project are not available yet.

“We are going to get it done in the near future,” Flood said. “We have some repair work that needs to be completed before we get into the painting.”

The painting project, Brown said, is logistically complicated and labor intensive.

The paint that is removed from the bridge before it is painted, Brown said, must not go into the river. Netting will be placed around the bridge to ensure paint does not fall into the water, Brown said.