Repairs to Picayune’s historic side of City Hall is about halfway complete.

Recently, Coastal Roofing Mississippi replaced the roof on that side of City Hall. The company started the roof repairs last Friday and was complete the next day.

“Working with the city was very easy, they didn’t want anything too flashy on the roof and kind of keep it with the more historic look with a modern shingle… they wanted to stick with a product that will still give it more of that old town feel since it is a historic building within the city,” said Coastal Roofing Owner Ed Stone.

The roof is just a piece to the renovation work on that structure.

“The roof is a very small part of what were doing, actually what we’re doing is restoring the exterior of the historic City Hall,” said Public Works Director Eric Morris.

Approximately $285,000 in federal and state bonds are being used to fund these repairs.

The project entails an entire exterior makeover, including prepping, painting, restoration of the building’s brick where needed, restoration of the mortar joints where needed, restoration of the plaster of the columns, pressure washing and repainting of the steps and hard surfaces, repairing or rebuilding the wrought iron balcony, replacing the porch lighting, and additional new concrete on the sidewalks. The hand rails will be repaired and repainted and modifications to the concrete curve and gutter that’s against the building will take place. The current drainage system that channeled storm and rainwater is being replaced with a different system.

“Pretty much everything to do with the exterior of this building except the reglazing of the window panes,” said Morris.

So far work to repair the roof, exterior painting, railing repairs, and stucco repair to the columns are substantially complete.

Restoring the entire exterior of that side of City Hall is expected to be a six-month project. Morris says that so far the project is ahead of schedule and anticipates that to continue until the project is complete in August of 2022.

“We’re very proud to be doing it, we’re very happy to see the exterior of City Hall restored to its original glory… we know that everybody can see the changes already and the remaining work that’s to be done will enhance it that much more. It will be a restored gem very soon,” said Morris.