NATCHEZ — Just when it appeared construction was complete at the Country Inn and Suites, half of the parking lot has been uprooted.

City Engineer David Gardner said the reason it’s being torn up is because it never met city engineering and construction standards.

When the asphalt for the lot was initially laid, there were several complications that made it uneven and lumpy, said Walter Tipton, a member of the management group New Orleans Hospitality Consultants.

“Mostly it had to do with the timing because they put it down during a couple of very wet weeks in January,” Tipton said.

Gardner said the city has strict standards for parking lots and has since 1995.

“Prior to 1995 parking lots were not given much thought so you see a lot around town prior to 1995 that have a lot of potholes in them or are structurally a mess,” he said.

He said had the city known the current lot would be the end result it would have never happened.

“We did not approve that parking lot to be built like that,” he said. “It undermines our policies on qualities of parking lots in and around the city.”

Tipton said hotel officials have always had the intention of fixing it.

“It’s an obvious construction problem and we’ve been negotiating to have it addressed ever since it was put down,” Tipton said. “We want it to be perfect.”

He said it should only take three or four days to complete the repaving since it only took two days to pave the first time.

“It’s not an overwhelming job,” he said.

This construction will not conflict with the hotel’s grand opening, scheduled for June 12.