City of Hattiesburg accepts bids for Mt. Carmel Baptist Church demolition

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - A good portion of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church's property was damaged by the 2013 tornado.

City officials closed down North Main Street and East 5th Street a couple of weeks ago to protect citizens from the possibility of the church collapsing, and are now accepting bids to demolish building b of the church.

Chief Administrative Officer, Ann Jones said, "What this process would do is to mitigate this liability long-term with the removal just of the dilapidated structure."

The public hearing will be on August 15. If the city moves on with this process, bids would be open for review on September 4.

"We have tried to address this and make sure that we have addressed every aspect to the letter of the law, including not just going out and selecting a contractor under "emergency purchase" statue, but moving forward with a scaled-bid process so that we give every contractor an opportunity to bid on the thing, and also ensuring the citizens of Hattiesburg their getting the absolutely lowest cost if we do have to incur this project," said Jones.

Jones said if city council does not want to go forward with the process, there is no harm and no foul eliminating the bids.