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City and county officials joined members of Hutton Wednesday morning to ceremonially break ground on a new shopping center that will include Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx.

During the ceremony, officials also announced three other retail stores that will be located in the center: Ulta Cosmetics, Five Below and Rack Room Shoes.

Hutton Development Partner Jamey Flegal said he hopes for other retail stores to be announced for the center in the next few weeks.

“This has been a long time coming,” Flegal said. “It’s been a winding road and sometimes a bumpy road. But there are a few people that have a lot of tenacity, persistence and drive to make this thing happen. Mayor Jason Reeves has a vision for this community, a passion and love for this community and the discipline to make this not just a good project, but a great project.

“The location of Trojan Marketplace provides an excellent opportunity to help our retail partners expand their footprint in Alabama,” Flegal said. “This project will result in economic development driven by a public-private partnership with the City of Troy and Pike County. In addition, the project further exemplifies Hutton’s market expertise in formulating such public-private partnerships in an effort to deliver first-class retail opportunities to communities in the southeast and beyond.”

Many people were involved in the process of bringing the shopping center to Troy including Reeves and Flegal, the Troy City Council, Pike County Economic Development, Pike County Commission, Frank Thomas, Walt Stell and the entire Hutton team.

“We couldn’t do this without the people of this community,” Reeves said. “They make this community easy to sell.”

The Troy City Council voted to enter a project agreement with Hutton in May 2019, offering incentives to help bring the development to Troy.

The shopping center will be more than 120,000 square feet and will be anchored by Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx, as required in the agreement. With the announcement of Ulta, Five Below and Rack Room, there are two other store spaces left to fill. There are also outparcels that could house additional stores or restaurants.

In exchange for the addition of new stores, jobs and more than $30 million in capital investment, the city agreed to pay $1.5 million to Hutton, remit half of sales tax to the store and collect a 1-cent district fee for the development.

The new center will be located on U.S. Highway 231 next to Lowe’s across from Troy Regional Medical Center.

Reeves said there is a total project area of about 25 acres that could be developed there in the coming years.

The shopping center is required to be open by November 2021, but it is projected to open in the spring of 2021.

The construction will include leveling the site and the building of roads to access parking in addition to the facility itself.

There will be entry to the shopping center from John Witherington Drive as well as U.S. Highway 231.