NATCHEZ. Miss. – There are three prospects seeking to be selected as the next Natchez tourism director. Mayor Dan Gibson said Tuesday someone could be appointed by the end of January.
City officials do not publicly disclose the names of people being considered for appointed municipal government jobs.
The Natchez Convention Promotion Commission will decide who’ll permanently replace Jennifer Ogden Combs, who resigned in September after serving four years as executive director of Visit Natchez, the city’s tourism and convention agency. Lynsey Smith has been serving as interim director.
The Board of Aldermen previously had the final say in selecting the tourism director with input from the commission, but state law actually gives the six-member NCPC ultimate authority on who to appoint, Gibson said.
The mayor noted the previous appointment process was governed by an now-expired agreement the board and commission had. Gibson said he learned last week that the agreement expired last June just before he became mayor.
While aldermen appoint the commission members, the NCPC controls how Natchez’ tourism-promotion funds are spent and who administers them. The commission currently has a vacant seat that aldermen are planning to fill. Applicants have until Jan. 22 to submit their resumes. The mayor and aldermen will then interview the prospects and decide who to appoint. As of Tuesday, four people had expressed interest in filling the commission’s empty seat, according to Gibson.
The NCPC and its Visit Natchez staff are the liaison between potential visitors to the area and the businesses that host them. The agency acts as a marketing organization, an information clearing house and as a promotional agency for the city and its attractions. It also oversees how the tourism taxes funding the NCPC’s activities are spent.
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Negotiations continue between Natchez officials and developers who plan to lease, renovate and reopen the Broadway Street railroad depot as a restaurant and entertainment venue, but they’re “almost ready to get the lease done,” the mayor said Tuesday. The contract could be ready for the board to approve by the end of January.
While the Board of Aldermen a year ago selected movie producers John Norris and Tate Taylor to lease and restore the city-owned building, plans have been stalled by COVID and other complications. Gibson said he’ll be meeting with Norris and others Friday to discuss the terms of the lease and “wrap this up” for aldermen to ratify at their next scheduled meeting Jan. 26.
While the city began renovating the 111-year-old train station in 2016, the Board of Aldermen held up plans for completing the vacant building’s restoration. The board in December 2019 selected Norris and Taylor to pursue their plans for the Broadway Street landmark.
Along with a restaurant, they envision an amphitheater along the bluff’s edge, a brick patio and public restrooms. The redevelopment will also incorporate the existing plaza on the street side of the depot. This has been drawn up with input from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Historic Natchez Foundation and the Natchez Preservation Commission. The commission is scheduled this evening to review the depot’s exterior alternation plans for its approval.
The passenger-train station was built around 1910 by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad and later owned by Illinois Central Railroad. Passenger-rail service for Natchez ended in the 1940s after World War II. The building became a restaurant in the1970s.
The depot was vacated in 2013 when a restaurant and souvenir shop were evicted by the city so the building could be renovated.
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