Development near Ike plods along
by Zach Parker - posted Thursday, January 24th, 2013 @ 12:00 pm

The City of West Monroe is still negotiating with an out-of-state shopping center developer about rebooting efforts to develop 60 acres of city-owned property in front of the Hamilton Ike Expo Center off Interstate 20.

The acreage, located along Constitution Drive and Mane Street, includes four acres occupied by Hilton Garden Inn, leaving the surrounding 56 acres open for development.

Dr. Eric Hale, West Monroe's economic development coordinator, said he and Mayor Dave Norris talked last week with the MGHerring Group, a shopping center and lifestyle center developer located in Dallas.

"We've been working on developing the site since 2005 or 2006," Hale said. "We're working toward not a strip center, but an open-air mall on the scale of a regional mall."
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