This is the 2nd development news thread I have started. There are a lot of condo towers proposed for the Gulfport/Biloxi area. Other developments planned are the Margaritaville Casino and Resort.

I have been here for 5 monthes last year.Actually the cities was destroyed from Katarina but now it going to be rebuild for many new development...I cheer for both of them...Gulfport and Biolxi:)

I was surprised we didn't already have a thread for development news in Oxford, considering that there's quite a bit. Probably the biggest project is the Oxford Commons:

http://www.oxfordmscommons.com/PDF/04_SiteRendering.pdf
http://www.oxfordmscommons.com/PDF/TheSquareOC.pdf

I don't know if it's all still on or not, but 580 acre mixed-use development sounds pretty good, especially including the movie theater and condos in the Town Square. 400 of the acres will be residential supposedly, but I don't know if they'll consistently use urban design..


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Southpointe, a neighborhood of dense townhomes on Hwy 7 on the east side of town


http://sacredsiteproperties.com/images/006/006oxford118557_0.jpg
New condos just off Oxford Square on Van Buren Street


Anyone go to Ole Miss that cares to complete the list?

I thought Oxford was Canada. :dunno:

I think you mean England, smart one.

I was noticing that there isn't a development thread for Mississippi so here it is, ill start off (I know this thread isn't going to be popular) :lol: !!!!

http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/story5.shtml
A new development in Starkville, Mississippi, I'm of it jealous... :lol:

http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/images/final1_color.jpg
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The development will include a Marriott Hotel, a conference center, 160,000 sq ft of retail, and much much more. :)

:? :? :? :? :? :? :? :?

There isn't a development thread for Mississippi that I know of so I made one!!!

I hear Jackson is booming.

I was noticing that there isn't a development thread for Mississippi so here it is, ill start off (I know this thread isn't going to be popular) :lol: !!!!

http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/story5.shtml
A new development in Starkville, Mississippi, I'm of it jealous... :lol:

http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/images/final1_color.jpg
http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/images/Aerial_View-1.jpg
http://www.shoppingcenterbusiness.com/articles/FEB09/images/EECooley.jpg

The development will include a Marriott Hotel, a conference center, 160,000 sq ft of retail, and much much more. :)

I was in Starkville in October and this was under construction!

CanCan Casino Resort - D'Iberville, MS

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CanCan Casino Resort to be Built in D'Iberville


A nationally recognized group of gaming operators wants to make D’Iberville the home of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s next world-class casino.

CanCan Casino Resort and Spa, LLC, received site approval from the Mississippi Gaming Commission Thursday on a 5-acre waterfront site on the east side of I-110 in D’Iberville overlooking scenic Biloxi Back Bay.

The CanCan Casino project mirrors efforts underway by the City of D’Iberville to transform their downtown into a premier shopping and entertainment destination.

D’Iberville officials noted the CanCan project could be the anchor the city needs to realize its downtown redevelopment ambitions.

"We’ve been looking for a catalyst such as this to jumpstart our downtown development," Mayor Rusty Quave said.


"The City of D’Iberville has been working hard for many years to transform our downtown and waterfront into areas where retail shops, restaurants and unique attractions can flourish," City Manager Michael Janus said. "The CanCan project will help us realize these plans."

When completed, CanCan will boast a 60,000-square-foot casino with 1,800 slots and 40 gaming tables, four sumptuous restaurants, a first-class French spa, 250 luxuriously appointed rooms and suites, and two exclusive retail outlets. CanCan will employ around 1,100 people.

CanCan’s principals worked with the leadership at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in D’Iberville to secure the 4.9-acre waterfront site.

Joseph Py and Joseph Manno, President/CEO, are the principals of CanCan Development, LLC.

Included among CanCan’s management advisors are gaming industry veterans H. Steven Norton and David Cacci.

"I’m thrilled to be back on the Mississippi Gulf Coast," said Manno.

"City and State officials have been very cooperative, and we appreciate that very much," he said.

Manno, a 29-year veteran of the casino business, was the President/CEO of the Havana Casino Resort project on Biloxi’s Point Cadet. The Havana project had received approval, but was derailed by Hurricane Katrina. Manno had relocated his family to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but lost his home to the storm. Manno’s experience includes running the operations at Paris Casino and Bally’s Casino in Las Vegas. Norton has headed four national casino companies as President/CEO. Cacci comes to the CanCan project after serving as President/CEO of NewYork, NewYork in Las Vegas. Joesph Py is a retired businessman.

Source (http://www.gulfcoastnews.com/gcnarchive/2010/gcnnewscancancasinodiberville022610.htm)


Latest Article


If the $450-million mixed-use casino project in D’Iberville, MS looks and feels like it could fit in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, that’s because the man behind it has plenty of experience in those markets.


George Toth, CEO of CanCan Development, previously worked as president of the Sands in Atlantic City and the chief operating officer of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Now he’s putting the finishing touches on plans for the new 18-acre CanCan Casino Resort less than a mile from Biloxi.

The French-themed mixed-use development will feature a 60,000 square-foot casino with 1,800 slot machines, 46 table games and 16 live poker tables, along with meeting space, 90,000 square feet of retail (restaurants, night clubs and shops), a free-standing wedding chapel and 550 hotel rooms. Three hundred of those rooms will be in a freestanding French-themed four-star quality hotel, while 250 will be part of the casino-resort.

Toth is waiting for final approval from the municipality and expects to break ground this summer and to open in the first half of 2013.

“We expect this project to serve as a catalyst for the revitalization of the area and the entire Gulf Coast region,” he says of the markets still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last year’s BP oil spill.


The project will be the first new ground-up casino in the Biloxi area since Katrina and will boost the local economy with 2,000 new jobs and a projected $260 million in gross revenue, he says. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, the area lost 5,000 hotel rooms and an estimated five million annual visitors.

“The area is making huge strides to come back,” says Toth, adding that gross gaming revenue was up in January (7%) after modest gains last year. “That’s not even during the busy months. It’s very encouraging for operators down here and this development will help everyone.”

Internationally acclaimed architectural firm Leo A Daly will design the CanCan Casino Resort & Spa and the French village. Toth’s company will operate the casino and the stand-alone hotel. He’s talked to several brand companies like Marriott, Starwood and Wyndham about the French-themed hotel, but nothing has been decided yet.

The project is almost completely financed privately through two major banks and an equity partnership, but some local incentives are coming as a result of the agreement for a French-themed village.

Source (http://lhonline.com/development/realestate/cancan_casino_biloxi_0408/)

This needs to be sticky!

RiverWalk Canal & Town Creek Development - Jackson, MS


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Jackson developer David Watkins wants to move the Town Creek out of its traditional bed and replace it with a scenic, man-made canal stretching from Mill Street to the creek's Pearl River confluence.

"This will be an unbelievable development," said Watkins, the developer behind the renovation of the King Edward Hotel, the Standard Life Building and the revitalization of the Farish Street Entertainment District.

"Think of it as a mile-long swimming pool--about eight-tenths of a mile. The channel itself is 14 feet down. Look down at the river, and it'll be 10 feet below and contain four feet of water."

Watkins plans to re-route the original creek into an underground pipe--capable of containing a 10-foot swell during flood stages--and use the filtered creek to feed his proposed RiverWalk and Town Lake projects. He says his plan to build waterfront property in Downtown Jackson could be completed within five years, if the Levee Board and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can assure him that flooding will no longer be a problem.

"None of this works if we don't have flood control. It would still be subject to the 1979 and 1983 floods," Watkins said. "It may be taken care of with the direction the Corps and the Levee Board is heading."

The Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District Levee Board approved a resolution last December that moved forward with the Corps' plan to expand levees along the Pearl River, which offers about 80 percent flood-control effectiveness from the kind of damage wrought by the infamous 1979 Easter Flood. The Levee Board now wants to pursue the possibility of building a shallow lake between the projected levees, with relatively minor environmental impact compared to similar lake plans proposed in the past.

Watkins said the new "Lake 255" plan the Levee Board is considering this month would put enough water into Town Creek to facilitate the creation of a new man-made canal with enough water in it to support boating and recreation.

The RiverWalk canal will exit into a 35-acre recreational lake, lined with residential housing and entertainment venues containing developments such as a Civil Rights Museum, a National Museum of Gospel Music, recording and broadcast studios, and a picturesque canal park, among other things.

"It's not that complicated," Watkins said. "Most of the property on the RiverWalk side is already owned by either developers, or the city or the Jackson Redevelopment Authority. Look behind the Convention Center. That's Convention Center property. We own the spot behind the King Edward."

The development would displace property at 995 S. West Street, the site of popular strip club Danny's Downtown. Club manager Mike Garren said he doubted the owners would be willing to sell the property, no matter how much a developer offered.

"If there's a developer wanting to buy this property, tell him we appreciate his offer, but no thanks," said Garren, who said the club was largely restricted to the industrial section near the downtown area because of strict zoning laws, and could find only limited placement in other productive sections of the city. "We have got to be here, but we also just happen to be in a place that's doing quite well."

Watkins envisions the northern section of RiverWalk containing a building combining the Civil Rights Museum and a National Museum of Gospel Music, even though Tougaloo College President Beverly Hogan told the Jackson Free Press last year that her college still planned to move forward with the construction of the Civil Rights Museum, despite financing problems.

A Civil Rights Museum commission appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour approved the location of the National Civil Rights Museum in 2008 near Tougaloo College, despite outcry from advocates like former Jackson Councilman Leslie McLemore and former Jackson Mayor Kane Ditto, who both argued that the museum belonged in an urban setting.

"We think that ultimately what Tougaloo wants is for the Civil Rights Museum to be successful, and we think it will be more successful in downtown Jackson, coordinated into a theme with the Gospel Museum and a focus on music. What will distinguish our civil rights museum from the one in Tennessee and Alabama and Georgia is our history of music in the Civil Rights Movement," Watkins said.

Tougaloo Board of Trustees President LeRoy Walker said he remained confident that Tougaloo would be the future location of the Civil Rights Museum, but added that he was excited about Watkins' plan.

"I'm good friends with David, and I'm enthusiastic about RiverWalk. We studied a similar development in another state, and you would not believe the revenue that can be generated by a project like this."

The RiverWalk design also places residential property at the southwest end of the development, along the east side of Gallatin Street. Watkins predicts installing about 8,000 new residential units, housed in buildings rising 10 or more stories, with low buildings closer to the water but increasing in height according to location, so that all occupants will have a view of the new lake. The lakeshore itself will strictly be public access, complete with fishing piers and walkways.

Condominiums "will start at $300,000 and go up to the millions," Watkins said.

He added, however, that he intends to have affordable apartments interspersed in the same residential area, often within the same buildings.

"We need this community to be a great, big melting pot," Watkins said. "We can't have a homogenous pile of rich folks."

The other side of the lake will contain the Mississippi Arts District, containing a scenic outdoor stage called the Mississippi Music Bowl, along with the proposed new site of the Mississippi Ballet and the Mississippi Institute of Fine Arts, which the developer officially introduced to the public last month.

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. said he fully supported Watkins' RiverWalk project, and described the endeavor as one of his main reasons for advocating for the "Lake 255" plan recently endorsed by the Levee Board--of which Johnson is a member.

"There's no question that the city of Jackson would benefit from a project such as this," Johnson said in March. "We can see many examples of the beneficial impact waterfront development can have on a city, and I'm hoping the Corps of Engineers will look at this as a development possibility for our city."


Source (http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/just_five_years_to_riverwalk_060210/)

^^

I might make a separate thread for this giant proposal!

Riverbend Crossing - DeSoto County, MS

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The massive Riverbend Crossing development on the DeSoto-Tunica county line, stung by the economic slowdown, got some additional time Thursday.

The Mississippi House agreed with the Senate and voted to extend to 2015 the deadlines for work to begin on Riverbend Crossing.

The bill now goes to Gov. Haley Barbour to sign, said state Sen. Doug Davis, R-Hernando.

"I'm excited about it," Davis said. "Especially in these tough economic times, it would bring economic development to Mississippi. ... My belief is that now with the House concurring to extend the deadline, it will help the project move forward."

Riverbend Crossing is a $2.7 billion, 4,300-acre development that has been on the drawing board since it won zoning approval in 2006. The project calls for an entertainment district, golf courses, hotels and as many as 9,500 homes

The site is just north of the DeSoto-Tunica county line, between U.S. 61 and the Mississippi River levee, and will be built in phases over the next 15 years.

Davis said the Senate approved legislation last month to extend the deadline for the project. The legislation also includes keeping alive the $173 million in state incentives for the development.

Those incentives include $23 million for roads, water and sewer lines, plus another $150 million in tourism tax rebates.

Rep. John Mayo, D-Clarksdale, said Thursday the House concurred with the Senate bill and agreed to the deadline extension.

"What it does is extend the deadlines for the project to 2015 and give potential investors an opportunity to meet the deadline dates, which would expire either this year or next," Mayo said.

Bill Phillips, president of California-based Phillips Development Corp., has been the developer linked to Riverbend. He will now have until 2015 to secure all the land and financing for the project.

Walls Mayor Gene Alday said the deadline extension was welcome news, especially in today's tough economy.

"I think it is great and hope the project comes to fruition," said Alday, whose nearby town would greatly benefit from the project.

Source (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/mar/20/riverbend-crossing-gets-extension-to-2015/)