Final touches approved for ‘Washington Monument’
RIDGELAND — Madison County’s version of the Washington Monument — much like the real one — is finally being finished, but it didn’t quite take four decades.
The base of the Colony Park Monument will finally be completed after city official unanimously approved proposed enhancements March 2.
The monument is at the northwest corner of I-55 south Frontage Road and Northlake Avenue and is a scale replica of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.
Buster Bailey, president of H.C.Bailey Companies a developer of the property, submitted the drawings done by Dean & Dean Associates Architects that represents the project proposal for a new base that says, “Colony Park.”
Community Development Director Alan Hart told the board the project will make the structure complete.
“The structure will look forever complete in all directions,” Hart said.
In response to a question from Ward 6 Alderman Wesley Hamlin, Hart said the monument will be lit at night.
The city’s Architectural Review Board did not meet the previous week on Tuesday, Feb. 23, because the board was using the city boardroom for a special called meeting.
“In lieu of an official meeting of the ARB and in an effort to keep the proposed project on schedule, we emailed a copy of the proposed enhancements to the Colony Park Monument to each ARB member,” Hart said.
Each member, Hart said, responded to say they had no objections to the request. Hart said that though the board had not offered its official approval, this “soft” or “informal” recommendation would suffice to approve the enhancements to the Colony Park Monument.
The item passed unanimously, 7-0, on the consent agenda.
The Colony Park Monument has been in place for about 10 years, Bailey said after the meeting.
He said that about four or five years ago it had to be moved 100 yards to the north to accommodate the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s right-of-way for I-55 access roads. Bailey said the move stalled finishing the structure until now.
The structure functions as a cell phone tower but Bailey said it holds more significance for them.
“To us, it is a landmark,” Bailey said. “It is designed to designate our development on Colony Park. It is really an entrance to the Colony Park development.”
Bailey said that following last Tuesday’s approval he expects to begin work within the next couple of weeks.
The Washington Monument was also built in pieces over a period of roughly four decades and the coloration of the marble at the base is evident.
A difference in shading of the marble, visible approximately 150 feet up, shows where construction was halted and later resumed with marble from a different source. That monument opened to the public in 1888.