[3/13/04]Estimates to build four ballfields off Halls Ferry Road came back more than budget, so Vicksburg officials say they will use city crews to do most of the work starting this spring.

The cost for the first four fields was estimated at $1.6 million, but the current budget for the project this year is $1 million, including the purchase of the 200 acres south of Hamilton Heights.

South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman, the former director of the city’s parks and recreation department, said the city can contract out part of the work and have crews do the rest.

He said the work should cost less than the $637,000 left in the bank after buying the land and engineering costs.

“We’ll get our guys out there and lay out the fields ourselves,” Beauman said.

Plans call for the fields to be ready by opening day in 2005. The total project includes 11 fields for softball, eight for baseball, a nature walking trail and community center with meeting rooms, skating park, splash pond and basketball courts.

No time line has been drawn for the rest of the development, and current funding is coming from the $17.5 million bond issue in 2001.

A municipal softball complex was first proposed 10 years ago on land the city owns at Vicksburg Municipal Airport, but never came to fruition. A bond issue in 1993 had been earmarked for the fields, but instead went to build the $1.7 million City Pool.

Beauman has been the driving force behind the current plan to build a complex on land purchased from an Alabama lumber company.

The undeveloped land is in a 10-year flood plain and near Hatcher Bayou, which frequently floods the adjacent neighborhood. There is also a sewage treatment lagoon that will have to be closed, but the site for the ballfields is about 120 feet above sea level, well above the elevation at the lagoon.

Concerns have also been raised about traffic in the area. Halls Ferry Road is one of the busiest streets in Vicksburg and Warren County and is the access point to the federal Engineering Research and Development Center and serves Pemberton Square and Halls Ferry Park, now the city’s largest ballfield complex.

Long-term plans call for soccer fields, but no date has been set for that phase of the development.

Today, there are no city-maintained soccer fields in Vicksburg, and the local soccer organization plays in Bovina. The fields are built on land owned by the school district and are maintained by Warren County.