Monday, September 10, 2007

New Developments Break Ground

Marion's west side continues to develop with nearly $8 million new building projects breaking ground this summer.

JWL Properties broke ground late last week for a new strip shopping center immediately north of the old Barnett Furniture building between Wal-Mart and the Illinois Centre Mall.

This is a $1.3 million construction project that should provide about another 20,000 square feet of retail space and possibly another restaurant. The address will be 2801 Civic Circle Drive on the inside loop around the mall.

Building permit applications show $4 million for the new Marion Toyota dealership on Route 13 across from Heartland Regional Hospital. The dealership will move the Toyota operation to the new site and keep the other automotive lines at the existing location.

On West Main Street the Bank of Herrin's new $1.8 million facility has started on the the steel work above ground. The new bank is beside its current facility (the originally TCBY building) across from Pepsi Mid-America and next to Comfort Suites.

At the corner of Route 13 and Halfway Road, Newcomb Oil Company's new $770,000 convenience store is will on its way as well. They buried the fuel tanks last week and the building will soon be fully enclosed. It's a very impressive design so far.

We're hoping there will be some more announcements soon as well, particularly in the travel side of the business.

Meanwhile what we do know is that Farmers State Bank is still presumably looking at building a new facility in front of Wal-Mart (they bought the land last winter) and Russell Oil Company may be looking at a new station on East DeYoung St. They took out a building permit earlier this year on a $285,000 project at 309 E. DeYoung, but haven't started construction.

No comments: