The Biloxi City Council has approved plans to apply for state grants for a lighthouse park.

“We’re going to use a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Marine Resources to obtain another grant that will total $8 million for what’s going to be a beautiful park,” said city spokesman Vincent Creel.

The city is negotiating to buy the property where the old BP gas station sits. That property, along with two other city owned pieces of property to the east, will be the site of a new visitor’s center.

“We were thinking we could either build a replica of the Dantzler House or the historic Visitor’s Center which was on the Town Green, and then a welcome center that could have a type of museum that would reflect Biloxi’s history,” said Historic Preservation chairwoman Lucy Denton.

The project calls for expanding the center median here where the lighthouse stands and moving the two northern lanes of U.S. 90.

“I think it’s the heart of Biloxi, and it shows that we’re coming back and we’re going to be better,” Denton said.

The council approved the proposal Monday.