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Posted Jun 4, 2024, 4:24 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: May 2023
Location: JXN Mississippi
Posts: 623
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Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum Hosts Mississippi Pickle Fest in Jackson
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The Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum will host its award-winning Mississippi Pickle Fest event 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, 2024. Admission is $12 for ages 3 and up.
“I want to invite the public to come out for what is on track to be the largest Mississippi Pickle Fest yet at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum,” said Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson. “Bring the family to enjoy the grounds of the Museum and all things pickled!”
In addition to the various exhibits on the grounds, visitors will enjoy live music, over one hundred food and craft vendors, two water slides, a dunking booth, an obstacle course, a dry combo bounce house, and a jousting arena. Competitions such as the Pickle Eating Contest and Pickle Jar Packing Contest will take place during this event. The Children’s Barnyard and Small Town, Miss., will also be open.
Mississippi Pickle Fest
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO:
Parking at the museum will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Overflow parking is located at the North Jackson Youth Baseball Fields, and a shuttle will transport guests to and from the parking lot.
Fast pass tickets can be purchased by scanning the QR code onsite to skip the line to enter the event. Once tickets are purchased, these patrons may enter at the Forestry Bridge Entrance next to the Crawdad Hole. It will be marked with a green flag.
Pickle Eating Contest
This event is sponsored by the Mississippi Agricultural & Forestry Museum Foundation, Southern State Utility, Southern Beverage, Cathead Distillery, Cadence Bank, T-Mobile, Penn’s, Xfinity, and Visit Jackson.
The Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, located at 1150 Lakeland Drive in Jackson, is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information about the Museum, call 601- 432-4500 or 1-800-844-8687, visit www.msagmuseum.org or visit the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on Facebook. The Ag Museum is a division of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce.
https://www.themississippimonitor.co...pickle-fest-2/
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What could've been? Some of downtown Jackson's development misses (from 2018 but wanted to share the many projects that have gone by the wayside in downtown)
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Through the years Jackson has seen several economic development possibilities that for one reason or another never panned out.
Some of the projects still could bear fruit while others lost steam altogether and there's nothing on the horizon to suggest they'll ever come back.
This is an artist rendering of the now defunct plans for the Old Capitol Green in downtown Jackson.
The fallout from this century's worst economic recession played a role in kneecapping momentum in many cases, and inconsistency from frequently changing mayoral administrations has hampered even short-term plans on developments.
The series: downtown.clarionledger.com
Jackson has had five mayors in less than 10 years. All have had varying ideas for what direction to take on large development projects but little continuity between administrations.
Old Capitol Green
A $1.1 billion sprawling, mixed-use development along Commerce Street never got off the ground.
The Old Capitol Green project called for 6 million square feet of residential, office and retail space spanning 14 blocks of Commerce Street from Pearl to Silas Brown streets.
The multiphase work would have brought in a massive 4,300 mixed-income living units to the downtown area. For perspective, there are about 330 apartments in downtown Jackson now, more than a decade since the project was proposed.
Developer Carlton Brown, a Mississippi native, touted the project as a haven for young and middle-aged professionals, blending cultural and technological sophistication. One concept was an elevator that would deliver building patrons and their vehicles to their floors, Downtown Jackson Partners Executive Director Ben Allen recalled.
The environmentally sustainable green project, complete with manicured grass roofs, was expected to take eight to 10 years to finish.
The state Legislature signed off on a $20 million loan and $5 million grant to upgrade surrounding infrastructure and build a public parking garage.
However, a disagreement between the city and Hinds County on tax increment financing, commonly known as a TIF, and bond debt contributed to the project's demise.
The city attempted to secure the bond debt for the project with the county, which is highly unusual, Allen said.
Minor league baseball team
In 2004, then Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. is generally credited (or blamed) with why the Mississippi Braves never came to Jackson.
Instead, Pearl welcomed the team with a stadium, and Pearl has enjoyed the status that comes along with it ever since. The 8,480-seat Trustmark Park stadium opened in 2005.
Johnson believed Jackson would have taken a financial hit if it took on the team, even though cities of similar size in just about every direction have minor league baseball teams. They include Montgomery and Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Memphis, and most recently Biloxi.
Tim Bennett, the former general manager of the independent Jackson DiamondKats baseball club and now the owner of the Biloxi Shuckers minor league team, first pitched the addition of a stadium in downtown Jackson. He said the stadium would have made the city more attractive to affiliated baseball clubs but was rebuffed by Johnson.
Instead, the Braves negotiated directly with Bennett and then Pearl Mayor Jimmy Foster. Pearl built Trustmark Park, directly east of where the Outlets of Mississippi later opened, and Bennett nabbed a cool million for his part in bringing the Braves to Pearl.
Allen called it "a huge miss" for downtown Jackson.
"Had they located downtown, it would have rocked," he said.
Allen noted the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, located in downtown Chattanooga, led the league in attendance in 2015.
The stadium's proposed location off Farish Street is also notable, given the trouble the city and developers have had in trying to revitalize that area over the years.
However, to Johnson's credit, it can be argued the terms of the deal appear to have been to Pearl's detriment. An article in Bloomberg notes the city has been dipping out of its general fund to pay for Trustmark Park, which was supposed to pay for itself.
Jackson did approve a feasibility study for a state-of-the-art collegiate baseball stadium in downtown Jackson in 2015, also proposed by Bennett. The stadium, with a 5,000-seat capacity, would have cost $10 million in city funding, but it never panned out, in part, because of Jackson's financial woes.
Jackson has the old Smith-Wills Stadium on Lakeland Drive, which once was home to the New York Mets farm club. Belhaven University baseball team now plays its home games at Smith-Wills.
Hollywood film producer Adam Rosenfelt, who has more than 15 feature films to his credit, including "Mr. Brooks" starring Kevin Costner, announced in 2014 he wanted to create a permanent motion picture business in Jackson.
Film industry
Despite some interest in encouraging the film industry to set up shop in Jackson and beyond, lawmakers have ultimately stymied any progress in that direction.
Hollywood film producer Adam Rosenfelt, who has more than 15 feature films to his credit, including "Mr. Brooks" and "Waiting," announced he wanted to create a permanent motion picture business in Jackson in 2014.
Rosenfelt proposed an incentives program that he said would help the state create a film infrastructure. But the studio never came to fruition.
Republican legislators cited a study by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review, or PEER, that said for every dollar spent in taxpayer money on the film industry, the return was 49 cents.
Last year, the Senate failed to pass a bill to extend the 25 percent tax rebate to filmmakers from out of state through 2020. This year, some legislators tried again to bring back the incentive package with House Bill 1132. That too failed, as Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said the incentives would not merit a large enough economic return for the state.
The passing of House Bill 1523 in 2016, or the so-called religious freedom law, which critics say allows businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community, is perceived to have cooled any remaining momentum to set up shop in Mississippi.
Library Lofts
Plans to transform Jackson's old city library into a mix of loft-style apartments and office space ran into delays as developers and federal officials tried to work out a way to preserve the building's historic character.
Developer Ted Duckworth planned to renovate the Carnegie Library, where the Tougaloo Nine in 1961 staged the first sit-ins of public institutions in Mississippi, into 16 loft-style apartments.
Nine Tougaloo College students were arrested as they conducted a sit-in at the library in an effort to force desegregation there. It is said to be the first major civil disobedience by black protesters in Jackson during the civil rights era.
Duckworth revitalized the Electric 308 building at 308 E. Pearl St. before purchasing Jackson's former library at the corner of State and Yazoo streets across from the Eudora Welty Library.
The building, to be known as the Library Lofts, would have offered off-street parking, outdoor terraces with built-in grills, laundry and exercise facilities. An associated website and display in the lobby was going to recognize the building's significance to the civil rights movement.
The National Park Service and state agencies set out to preserve the historically significant building but it proved to be too much of a financial hurdle for Duckworth, who sold the building to the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
"It'd be full right now if everything worked out," Allen said.
The Developments
The Faulkner
Heritage Building
Lamar Life Building
Regions Plaza
The Pinnacle
Landmark Center
Capitol Art Lofts
Smith Park
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/...ies/559643002/
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I-55 widening project doubles in cost due to inflation, MDOT executive director says [VIDEO]
https://www.newsbreak.com/jackson-ms...-director-says
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