Gillespie Street at North State Street will soon be a pedestrian-only entrance into the Belhaven neighborhood.
The concrete has been poured where a brick pillar will be constructed and planters will be installed that will prevent vehicles from entering the neighborhood at that location, said Mary Alex Thigpen, director of the Greater Belhaven Foundation.
A historical marker noting the significance of Gillespie Farms, the namesake of the street, will also be installed at that location.
Construction of the barrier is expected to be completed by mid-March, Thigpen said.
Gillespie Street at North State Street is the first one of six locations the foundation plans as funding becomes available to close to vehicles as a traffic calming measure.
“Gillespie Street residents were eager for this,” Thigpen said.
The closing of Gillespie Street at North State Street will mean drivers can no longer cut through from North State Street to Jefferson Street and it is also expected to cut down on drivers who park there and work at the Mississippi Baptist Medical Center.
It costs about $30,000 to install a barrier so that Gillespie Street at North State Street is open only to pedestrians and closed to vehicles, she said. The cost includes not only construction and materials but also hiring a traffic engineer to study the location, design and engineering and landscaping.
Funding for the project is from the Greater Belhaven Community Improvement District, which property owners contribute to through their property taxes. Funds from the improvement district will make it possible to erect one barrier each year, Thigpen said.
The city does not provide funds for traffic calming.
Belvoir Place and Riverside Drive is the next location in the neighborhood to be made pedestrian-friendly and closed to vehicular traffic, but that is not expected to occur until next year, Thigpen said. “The residents there have expressed interest,” she said.
One street a year will be closed to vehicular traffic using funds from the Greater Belhaven Community Improvement District, Thigpen said.
The Belhaven neighborhood has been interested in traffic calming for numerous years.
Getting all the details in place for the foundation to be able to close six locations to vehicular traffic has taken longer than expected, Thigpen said.
In 2022, a former city of Jackson planning director introduced a proposed traffic calming ordinance at Belhaven’s town hall meeting, but an ordinance was never formally submitted to the city council.
In September 2024, the Jackson City Council took an initial step and adopted an ordinance amending three sections of the city’s code of ordinances about neighborhood traffic calming procedures. The changes went into effect 30 days later.
One change made the traffic calming committee a subcommittee of the city’s planning board instead of a stand-alone committee. The chairman of the planning board is responsible for appointing a resident from each of the seven wards to the subcommittee.
The change to the ordinance was needed because the previous traffic calming committee once met so sporadically that the terms of its members would expire in between meetings, which meant members would have to go through the lengthy process of being re-appointed and confirmed by the city council.
The foundation put the street closure project on the back burner for more than six months, while it waited for the traffic calming committee to be named from members of the city’s planning and zoning board.
“Terry Williamson, a Belhaven resident and legal counsel for the city of Jackson, did a lot of work to make the traffic calming committee a reality,” Thigpen said.
In June 2025, the traffic calming committee was established with the members of the city’s planning and zoning board. Members of the traffic calming committee are Mitch Monsour of Ward 1; Bertha Thomas of Ward 2; Geneva Thompson of Ward 3; Eric Norwood of Ward 4; Vic Hudson of Ward 5; Emon Thompson Sr. of Ward 6; and Jennifer Welch of Ward 7.
The traffic calming committee approved the Gillespie and North State Street location, and 60 residents affected by the closure had to approve it and sign a petition required by the city.
Belhaven has more than 30 entrances and the idea of blocking six of them and converting them to pedestrian-only entrances grew from consultation with the Fred Carl Jr., Small Town Center at Mississippi State University and a security audit.
“It’s not just an arbitrary idea,” Thigpen said. “It comes from an overlay of information.”
The traffic calming committee has approved the foundation’s plans to make these locations open to pedestrians only:
- Quinn Street and Fortification Street on the Belhaven side of Fortification
- Monroe Street and Fortification Street on the Belhaven Heights side of Fortification
- Belvoir Place and Riverside Drive
- North Street and Manship Street, which is part of the Belhaven Town Center Development
- Manship Street and Jefferson Street, which is part of the Belhaven Town Center Development
