MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile celebrates the oldest organized Carnival in the United States. The city government itself, however, does not own a float.
That may change Tuesday.
The Mobile City Council is scheduled to consider a resolution that would have the City of Mobile commission a custom Mardi Gras float of its own.
The Terms
The resolution, sponsored by Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis, would authorize an agreement between the city and Mirth Artis LLC for construction of a custom City of Mobile Mardi Gras float.
The base contract price is $45,725.00.
The resolution also sets a ceiling: a total amount not to exceed $55,725.00, exclusive of separately procured chassis welding.
That structure is standard for fabrication contracts and worth reading carefully. The $45,725 base covers the agreed scope. The $10,000 difference between the base price and the ceiling functions as a contingency — authority to cover changes or additions without returning to the council for a second vote on every adjustment.
The chassis welding carve-out means exactly what it says. A parade float is built on a trailer or chassis, and the structural welding of that underframe is being handled as a separate procurement rather than folded into this contract. That is a common split: the fabricator who builds and decorates the superstructure is frequently not the shop that does structural steel work.
Anyone comparing this figure with the cost of other floats should account for that exclusion. The number authorized here is not the all-in cost of a finished, road-ready float.
Why a City Would Want One
Mobile’s Carnival is organized and financed almost entirely by mystic societies — private membership organizations that build, maintain and roll their own floats each season. The city’s role has traditionally been infrastructure and public safety: closing streets, staffing routes, handling cleanup and permitting.
A city-owned float changes that relationship at the margin. It gives the municipal government a vehicle of its own for parades and civic events, one it controls rather than borrows, and it can be used year after year across multiple occasions.
It also has value outside Carnival season. A float is a mobile asset that can appear in other parades and civic celebrations throughout the year, and cities that own one typically use it well beyond the event that justified the purchase.
Context
The timing is notable. The proposal arrives in the same period the city confirmed that Regions Arena will not be finished in time to host Mardi Gras events in 2027, pushing that building’s debut to next spring.
The two items are unrelated in scale — a $300 million arena and a float costing less than one-five-thousandth as much — but they sit in the same civic calendar. Mobile’s Carnival will roll in 2027 regardless of what happens with the arena, and the float, if approved, would be part of it.
What Happens Next
The resolution goes before the council at Tuesday’s meeting. Council resolutions of this kind authorize the administration to enter the agreement; they do not themselves complete a purchase.