Vicksburg officials voted Friday to purchase for $1 a portion of property from the Mississippi Bluffs Casino development, in limbo since the would-be developer died last year, and will have the option to build a golf course on the site.

Mayor Laurence Leyens said the city would not opt to build the 18-hole golf course if original plans for the development for the golf-and-gaming complex move forward.

If a deal doesn’t surface, however, the city will — through a purchase and sale agreement signed Nov. 10, 2005 — have a year to build the course on about 200 acres of the 480 acre development site of the former Vicksburg Chemical land south of the river bridges.

“If we didn’t execute the option, we wouldn’t be at the table,” Leyens said. “I don’t want (the city) to build a golf course if we can get a developer to do it.”

Mississippi Bluffs, slated as the city’s sixth casino, came to the table in late 2005, when the company received site and development approval for a $200 million casino. The plan also gained support from South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman, former recreation and parks director for the city and a golf enthusiast. Beauman, who has said a third golf course could be good for both locals and tourists, was not at Friday’s meeting because of a family illness.

Paul Bunge, a Colorado developer who had entered talks with Las Vegas-based American Gaming Enterprises in hopes the company would buy out the $190 million gaming portion of the development, was deeded land east and west of Warrenton Road in 2006 by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality on the condition developers would pay $8 million to clean up 20 acres of land separate from the casino development said to be contaminated from 60 years of chemical plant operations. Bunge planned to develop that portion for homes and shopping areas, in addition to the golf course and riverside casino.

Leyens said that clean-up has almost been completed and remains the responsibility of the development. The land the city purchased is not on the plant site and, therefore, has no contamination.

American Gaming opted to leave the deal 30 days before Bunge died, but Leyens indicated Bunge’s estate is working to continue the development.

After Bunge’s death, attorneys with Jackson law firm Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, took over all legal matters. Phone calls made to the firm were not returned.