NATCHEZ, Miss. – City officials are asking the Mississippi Department of Transportation to realign the intersection between Walmart and Natchez High School to accommodate what the mayor said would be “the largest retail project in southwest Mississippi in some time.”
Horne Properties of Tennessee is contracted to buy the city-owned property next to Walmart to build a shopping center. To ensure it’s accessible from Seargent Prentiss Drive, plans call for the existing intersection between Walmart and the Natchez school campus to be moved slightly northward.
“Once this is approved by MDOT, this will move us in the direction that we need to be going – and that is to make sure that we can have this very large, historic retail development in our city employing many, many people,” said Mayor Dan Gibson.
The 30-acre tract surrounds the old Feltus house where the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Natchez post was located.
Knoxville-based Horne has developed more than 140 properties, including shopping centers in Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and North Carolina, according to the company’s website. They’re anchored by such chain stores as Ross Dress for Less, Dollar Tree and Hibbett Sports – many adjacent to Walmarts.
There are hopes that Horne’s Natchez retail site will have such stores as TJ Maxx and Aldi.
The costs for building the new intersection is expected to be borne by the developer and the state while the city could provide tax incentives to help pay for the overall development, Gibson said.
He expressed confidence MDOT – governed by the three-member Mississippi Transportation Commission – will approve the engineered plans to reconfigure the intersection that will also access Walmart and the Natchez school campus, where the high school and middle school are located. The plans call for building the new intersection about 100 feet from the existing one.
The property being sold to Horne was given to the city in 2015 by the state. The Board of Aldermen subsequently put it up for sale for an initial asking price of $4.5 million. State law requires revenues from selling the property to be divided equally between the city, the National Park Service and the state Department of Archives & History. The money is to be used for unspecified enhancements of the Natchez riverfront, the Natchez National Historical Park and other historic properties.
The land was acquired by the NPS many years ago for the Natchez Trace Parkway but was never needed. The federal government gave the land to the state, which in turn donated it to Natchez.
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