NATCHEZ, Miss. – The city received a $16,000 insurance payment to help repair the recently vandalized Margaret Martin Performing Arts Center in Natchez
City Alderman Dan Dillard expressed hopes the necessary plumbing and electrical fixes are finished before the annual Natchez Festival of Music begins in May. The former school on Homochitto Street has been home of the music festival for 21 years.
It was discovered last month that vandals or squatters wrecked the city-owned building’s interior and yanked out copper or brass plumbing fixtures. The total cost of repairs is about $21,000, said Jody Rutter, who manages the maintenance of city buildings. While insurance covers about $16,000 of that, the city has to come up with $5,000.
For the long-term future, a campaign is being waged to get public and private funds to restore the historic Gothic Revival/Tudor-style structure built in 1927. An architect has estimated about $6 million is needed to refurbish the MMPAC.
While the building has “good bones,” it has a variety of structural problems, said architect Belinda Stewart, who was hired by MMPAC supporters to assess it. The 93-year-old building has suffered water damage from years of leaks; has a sagging auditorium floor; requires modifications to make it more accessible for the disabled; needs a new roof and fire-sprinkler system.
An alliance of government and private partners was formed last year to revitalize the building. The group – Friends of the Natchez Centre at Margaret Martin — hired Stewart to design plans for making it a “landmark center for arts and culture.”
The state Legislature is being asked by the alliance to provide funds to restore the building, which is officially designated a Mississippi landmark by the state Department of Archives and History.
Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell and aldermen have also discussed selling the building. They met last month in a session closed to the public to review a prospective buyer’s interest in acquiring the Margaret Martin Performing Arts Center.
The Board of Aldermen has previously had prospective takers for the MMPAC, but those acquisitions fell through.