Plans for a new 8,000 square-foot shopping mall in Lowndes County got the green light Oct. 1 as officials met to finalize the details of the $100 million project, Columbus Mayor Robert Smith said. The lifestyle center will be named University Park and is set to employ at least 2,000 people. Developer Newton Oldacre McDonald is expected to start construction in spring 2008. The center will be located off the Macon-Meridian exit at the intersection of U.S. Highways 45 and 82.
“It’s a good win-win situation, especially with the city and county working together in a partnership,” Ward 4 Councilman Fred Stewart said. “I think we need to do that more often. I was glad we could finalize it and work together and come together as a group.”
The idea for the mall came from Newton Oldacre McDonald marketing manager Chad Newell, a former Mississippi State student, who had looked at several properties in the Starkville and Columbus area.
Smith said Newell had been to the location in Columbus on several occasions before the deal was finalized.
“This is a real exciting project for our company,” Newell said. “We build high quality lifestyle components and our company does build to suit.”
Brenda Lathan, vice president of economic development for the city of Columbus, said the city has to annex the area in which the mall will be built, but the city and county have already entered into an agreement with the developer.
Smith said the developers want the mall to be within city limits.
Newell said shoppers are driving to Tuscaloosa or Birmingham to shop, so positioning the lifestyle center in Lowndes County is a crucial position to bring retail stores, restaurants and hotels to the area.
After the annexation, the city has to form a Tax Increment Financing district, Smith said. For the TIF to pass, the project must be at least 300,000 square feet.
The first phase of the mall will be 400,000 square feet and the second phase will be 800,000 square feet.
“They haven’t specified what stores will be coming to the mall, but if you look at some of their other malls they have stores like Kohl’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Home Depot, Target and O’Charley’s,” Smith said. “They’re a first class operation.”
Smith said the development group toured two of the developer’s facilities in Opelika, Ala. and Nashville, Tenn.
Lathan said she expected mall costs to be covered by bonds, so there will not be an increase in taxes to pay for the mall.
Officials expect revenue to cover costs of building the new mall, she said.
Lathan said she expects mall sales tax for the first year to reach $2.5 million with $1.5 million per year going to the Lowndes County school system.
She also said she expects sales to reach at least $200 million per year.
“I think it will become a destination for tourists and shoppers especially,” she said. “There are two hotels within the lifestyle center.”
“The location of the mall is so good, you can recruit from Golden Triangle, Starkville, Macon and West Point,” Smith said. “We just received a grant to do some architectural work on our Tombigbee Bridge and to expand our river walk with a nature trail.”
Senior agricultural information science major Meredith McCurdy said the mall will not affect her.
“I shop in Jackson or Memphis,” she said.
Shalyn Claggett, assistant professor of English, said having a new mall close to Starkville will be beneficial for the MSU community.
“As much as I’d like to be ‘beyond’ capitalism, I am an enthusiastic consumer, right down to my petit-bourgeoisie Bandoliono pumps,” she said.
Claggett said having a mall nearby would improve the quality of life in Starkville.
“The thing I’ve missed most since moving from Nashville … is shopping,” she said. “It would be great to tell potential students and faculty that we have somewhere to buy clothes and hang out. It would also help the economy, and that’s good for the school as well.”
Lathan said there have been no unexpected delays or resistance encountered in any part of the process and that development is on schedule.
“We are doing due diligence and working with the leasing side and the infrastructure at the site,” Newell said.