“This has been a milestone day for Biloxi,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said this afternoon, after seeing almost $6 million in grants awarded to two local projects during a morning ceremony, followed by an afternoon ceremony where ground was broken for a new four-lane boulevard to replace the current Caillavet Street.
During a convention in Biloxi this morning, the Mississippi Department of Transportation presented Holloway a check for $2 million to help the city fund a new Popp’s Ferry bridge. At the same conference, former Mayor Jerry O’Keefe, representing the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, was on hand to accept a $3.7 million check from MDOT for construction of a visitors center at the future Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in east Biloxi.
MDOT’s presentations to the city and museum are the result of a trip Holloway had made to Washington two years ago, where he sought support for federal funding to help construct a new Popp’s Ferry bridge in west Biloxi.
And this afternoon, Holloway was joined by members of the Biloxi City Council, the city’s construction management team, and Caillavet Street property owners to break ground on the new roadway at Caillavet, which is part of a revitalization project that has been eyed for decades and in the works for almost a decade.
Said Holloway during the ground-breaking ceremony: “This project – like the work we did on Popp’s Ferry and Cedar Lake roads and at the new Back Bay Boulevard – is about more than building new and wider roads. These projects are about moving traffic AND they are about enhancing our tax base by helping improve existing businesses and creates new businesses and about creating jobs.”
To see photos from the ground-breaking ceremony and aerial views of the Caillavet Street area, click here.
To see construction information on the project, click here.
To read Mayor Holloway’s comments at the ground-breaking ceremony, click here.
