Columbus City Council examine bids for Terry Brown Amphitheater
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – After about 9 years, Columbus’s Terry Brown Amphitheater is still about $3 million away from completion.
The Columbus City Council advertised for bids to complete all or parts of the project.
This week, they opened and examined those bids.
There was only one submitted for completely finishing out the amphitheater.
It came in at a little over $3 million, according to Mayor Keith Gaskin.
The city recently received one million dollars from the state legislature to go towards the project.
And they have applied for a half a million dollar grant.
They advertised for bids to see how much they might be able to get from that apportionment.
The state has already given about $3.3 million to the city for construction, since it began in 2016.
At a work session on February 27, council members floated the idea of dipping into the city’s capital fund.
Mayor Gaskin advised against it.
“I’ve cautioned the council to be careful about removing money from the capital fund for the amphitheater, because the idea is that’s a new fund we’ve created during this administration that we need to continue to grow. That’s the kind of fund you have primarily in place for emergencies; like for instance, we’ve got some roofs that need to be fixed, still in the city. If there was something that came about that we had not budgeted for, you have money in the capital fund to handle those costs, so you don’t take out loans or more debt,” said Gaskin.
The mayor has been lobbying for allowing groups to stage events at the venue before it’s completely finished to help increase public interest and possible private sector investment.
