NATCHEZ &045; Efforts to buy the former International Paper Natchez mill site and locate industries there have taken quite a spill.

According to Woody Allen, chairman of the Natchez-Adams County Economic Development Authority, a key party to the negotiations recently fell at his home and has been hospitalized since then with multiple injuries. &uot;He was in the ICU for two weeks,&uot; Allen said.

The fall took place before documents necessary to the deal could be signed, Allen told the EDA board in its Wednesday meeting.

The more than 50-year-old chemical cellulose mill closed in July 2003 due to poor market conditions, leaving more than 600 people out of work or transferred to other locations. In April 2004 aldermen, supervisors and EDA board members met to discuss options for buying part of the International Paper mill property. The EDA then sent officials at IP’s corporate office a proposal of how much local bodies would pay for pieces of the mill property.

Revisions of the proposal have been sent back and forth between the EDA and IP ever since, as well as a prospect for the site, which Allen has not been willing to name.

The EDA in May received a $268,245 U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant for studies related to the development of an industrial park. If the IP site deal comes to fruition, that money will be used to conduct due diligence at that site and at possible industrial sites on U.S. 61 and 84, Allen said.

Also during Wednesday’s EDA meeting,

Allen said he no longer considers the Venco project active, &uot;at least from our end.&uot;

That’s because some of company CEO Gary Ventrella’s backing and customers for the site have fallen through, &uot;and he’s now trying to work some of that out.&uot;

Ground was broken in late October at the Natchez-Adams County Port for Baton Rouge-based Venco’s planned metal fabrication plant, which Ventrella said would hire at least 50 people with wages at least twice minimum wage.

Since then, county supervisors have applied for tens of thousands of dollars in federal grants to help fund site development and construction for the project, which on Wednesday was taken off the EDA’s list of active prospects.