JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Thalia Mara Hall could see some improvements earlier than anticipated. Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba said bids to clean the venue should open as soon as next week.

In early August, the city was forced to close Thalia Mara Hall after “early microbial activity” was discovered following a recent malfunction with the HVAC controller in the facility. Lumumba said chillers cannot be installed inside Thalia Mara Hall until the mold issue has been properly remedied.

According to the report by the State Fire Marshal’s Office (SFMO), mold was found in the facility, and human waste was found on the balcony. The report also found that some fire extinguishers were not up to date. The city submitted an action plan to fix the issues found in the report.

“We issued a bid recently, and our third-party evaluator was a little concerned with what was returned. And so, he made some adjustments to that bid process, some things that he wanted to incorporate. That bid is out now, and we anticipate opening the bids next week. This is done based on the emergency. So immediately after opening those bids, it should not be a long delay before we can actually get to work. We do have the money in hand for the remediation work to be done under this, but we understand that there’s other work that is beyond the scope of just the remediation,” the mayor said.

Remediation of the issue could take anywhere between four to eight weeks.