EXPANSION AND ENHANCEMENT IN NOXUBEE COUNTY
NEW BUILDINGS, IMPROVED ROADS, BRIDGES AND PLANNED INTERNET CONNECTIVITY ALL SIGNIFY BOTH CURRENT AND FUTURE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
ONGOING INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS
Noxubee County received $2.34 million from the Office of State Aid Road Construction within the Mississippi Department of Transportation for a countywide resealing project and will advertise for bids in the near future, District 4 Supervisor Eddie Coleman said.
The county started advertising at the end of January for the replacement of a bridge on Butler Road with $2.9 million in Emergency Road and Bridge Replacement funds, which are authorized by the Mississippi Legislature and divided among counties in need of infrastructure repairs.
Another bridge replacement project, this one on Hopewell Road near Brooksville, is under contract with Laurel-based construction company Magco, Coleman said, and construction should begin by March.
Macon and the county are partnering to repair a bridge on North Street in the city, which will cost about $400,000 and should start this summer, Coleman and Macon Mayor Bob Boykin both said.
Coleman also said some “major improvements” to Prairie Point Road, east of Macon, are to be expected.
Macon is still trying to secure $400,000 in state aid funds to replace a bridge on Nate Wayne Drive, but Boykin said he is optimistic that the funding and the project will go forward.
NEW BUILDINGS AND BUSINESSES
Macon catfish processing plant Superior Catfish, which serves about 65 local farmers, is progressing well and should be finished and in use by August 1, general manager Fred Johnson said.
The $17 million expansion, which broke ground in September 2019, will nearly double the size of the facility and is expected to add 25 jobs.
Meanwhile, construction of the Greater Meridian Medical Clinic on Miller’s Chapel Road off Highway 14 is nearing completion, Boykin said.
Mitchell Dental Clinic moved from the building it had occupied for 11 years in downtown Macon into the former home of Fred’s on Frontage Road, on the northern end of the city.
Lindy Hill, chief operating officer at Mitchell Dental, said purchasing the Fred’s building and repurposing half of it was more efficient and financially feasible than building a completely new clinic. She said a good use of the other half of the building might be to rent out space for more medical offices, creating a medical complex.
Next door to the former Fred’s, Nathaniel Miller of Brooksville is building 32 storage units with a business called Safe Space.
BROADBAND INTERNET EXPANSION
4-County Electric Power Association will lay about 200 miles of fiber optic cable from east to west across the northern portion of Noxubee County near Brooksville. This project, part of a pilot program that received partial funding from the state Legislature, will bring broadband internet to rural parts of the Golden Triangle currently without it. The Legislature in 2020 approved $65 million from the federal CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act to aid electric cooperatives in providing broadband to rural communities.
Overall, 4-County received $6 million in CARES funding and is combining that with $7 million of their own money to lay just under 500 miles of fiber optic cable in rural parts of Noxubee, Clay and Choctaw counties.
Noxubee County will receive about 200 of those miles of cable, public relations and marketing manager Jon Turner said, and a quarter of the project’s targeted recipients live in that area, while a quarter live in Choctaw County and the remaining half live in Clay County.
4-County has not laid any cable in Noxubee County as of January, Turner said, because the plan is to work on Clay and Choctaw counties first, but the entire project has to be finished by June, he said.
STORY BY TESS VRBIN
PHOTOS BY DEANNA ROBINSON
