NATCHEZ — The soft start to the City of Natchez’s tricentennial will start Thursday with the unveiling of two community legacy projects.

A ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the remodeled bluff-top bandstand will immediately be followed by a groundbreaking ceremony for the Bridge of Sighs project Thursday.

The festivities will start at 4:30 p.m.

David Gardner with the Community Alliance said the projects were being celebrated jointly with Natchez Tricentennial Commission.

Tricentennial Commission Director Jennifer Ogden Combs said the commission would be giving away Great Mississippi River Balloon Race packages and handing out information about the tricentennial at the event.

“We wanted to make this a full community get-together that will kind of be an informal kick-off for the tricentennial,” she said.

“I hope lots of people can come out, and we can find out what all of them are doing (for the tricentennial), and at the same time support this great thing the Community Alliance has done.”

The bandstand, often locally referred to as the bluff gazebo, faced some significant structural issues due to rotting in recent years. The Community Alliance, the Natchez Rotary Club, the Adams County Master Gardeners, the City of Natchez and others funded the renovations.

“The gazebo was a project that the Community Alliance undertook and ultimately had a tremendous amount of volunteerism attached to it, with people donating their time, materials and labor to get it done,” Gardner said. “We had a little more than $40,000 of in-kind work and different things that were donated to make it happen.

“It was a pretty good effort that involved a lot of people, and we wanted to celebrate that it was done.”

The Bridge of Sighs project — which will end in the reconstruction of a historic walking bridge that rose over Roth Hill Road — is also a Community Alliance backed undertaking, and will be included in the Natchez Trails when it is completed.

The $700,000-budgeted project is being funded by grants from the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks and the Federal Highway Administration.

The groundbreaking ceremony Thursday will be for the foundation work. The bridge itself will be pre-fabricated off-site.

The Natchez bridge on which the new construction is modeled was built in the 1800s, but it was actually modeled after a famous bridge in Venice, Italy, that was built in the 1600s.

Gardner said why the Venetian structure was named the Bridge of Sighs is debated. Some have said it was because it was the bridge prisoners crossed on their way to execution, while others said it was because the landmark was popular with lovers, he said.

Why the Bridge of Sighs in Natchez took that name as well is just as unclear, Gardner said.

“Did people sigh because when they stood on it gave a beautiful view of the Mississippi River?” he said. “That’s what I would like to think.”