NATCHEZ — The Natchez Adams County Recreation Commission may soon present elected officials with proposed multi-million dollar improvements to local ballparks.

During a regularly scheduled board meeting Monday, Supervisor Mike Lazarus said one of the recreation board’s members, John Ward Junkin, offered a preview of a Baton Rouge architect’s proposals for the Duncan Park, Liberty Park and the girl’s softball complex near Natchez High School.

Junkin said the recreation board hired Joseph Furr, a Baton Rouge landscape consultant, for approximately $25,000 in May to develop a list of recommendations with rough price estimates ranging from $1.3 million for “must do” updates to $3.5 million for “gold standard” improvements.

“These are rough estimates, but are giving us an educated guideline,” Junkin said. “The recreation board does not have any funds for the completion of this project at this time and hopes to get some direction from the Board of Aldermen and Board of Supervisors as to what they would have the desire to fund. Once that decision is made, we will move forward with having the appropriate master plan finalized.”

Some of Furr’s recommendations include building an additional field in Duncan Park for tournaments, turning the softball field into a dual-purpose field suitable for baseball and softball games, updating each of the fields and bathroom facilities and adding shaded seating for spectators and parking lots, Junkin said.

“It took several months of researching and meeting to end up with a proposal from the firm we chose,” Junkin said. “… This process started back around January. … The recreation board had a master plan drawn years ago but it was to have a ball park built on the ‘bean field’ that is no longer available to us, so we decided to see if we could just fix what we have.”

Lazarus said during Monday’s meeting officials could prioritize the most-needed projects on the list and use $100,000 that the county allocates annually for recreational capital improvements to put toward a bond issue to procure the funds.

“There are some things listed that you may want to spend more money on than others,” Lazarus said. “If you put more money into one area, you might attract some junior college and Alcorn students to come out and play there. They gave us a lot of options. … It’s a good proposal and I think it covers all of the needs.”

Lazarus said after the meeting that once the proposals are made, the next step for the board would be to decide which areas to focus on, bid the projects to engineers, procure the funding and start the work.

“I’d like to see this done by next winter so that by spring we’d have new ball fields that are compliant,” he said.

In other matters during the Adams County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday, the board:

4Unanimously approved an application for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Community Heritage Preservation grant for roof repairs to the Adams County Courthouse with a 50% match, or approximately $27,500.

4Heard purchase requests from Adams County Coroner James Lee for new equipment and a new van but took no action on those requests.