In yesterday’s city council meeting, council members approved a bid for renovations of the Dentzel Carousel Building.
The building has been in Meridian since 1909. It is considered a national historic landmark and is toured by thousands of visitors each year.
“It’s an excellent building. It’s a lot of history there. The Dentzel Carousel is one of few throughout this country. We’re very proud to have one here in Meridian, and we just feel like we need to do what we need to do to preserve the building,” said City Council President, Kim Houston.
The building has even caught the attention of the Travel Channel, which will be in Meridian next week to film a documentary.
“They will come in and do a visit with the mayor, council members, and people in this community,” said Parks and Recreation Director Kelvin McGruder.
Repair work on the carousel will cost approximately $63,000.
“Repairing the roof, doing some painting, dealing with the termite issues. It’s a laundry list of things that need to be done,” said Houston.
However, council members have designated a budget of $85,000 for the project. J & J Contractors based in Collinsville will do the repairs.
“Once he finishes the renovations if there is anything else that is needed elsewhere in the building, we’ll take that back to the council and say we’ve done this with the $63,000, we have that $25,000 left over, we might also need to do these things to keep the building accessible to the community,” said McGruder.
Renovations are expected to begin in the next two to three weeks.
“Once started, it will probably take another three to four months before we get everything done. We don’t want a rush job, so we’ve scheduled to shut down the carousel until probably about April or May,” said McGruder.
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