Benton City Council Approves $28.3 Million ‘Shoppe Of Benton’ Project

From our content partner, KATV Ch. 7 News:

A $28.3 million project is headed to Benton after city council members approved the project Monday night.

It’s expected to be located along the I-30 access road near the Landers dealership and will be built out to Highway 5.

While no stores were revealed, the Shoppe of Benton will be a mix of hobby and clothing stores and according to the city, the $1.4 million that they’ll be investing will be re-couped within the first year.

The 160,000 square foot retail center is expected to bring 200 permanent jobs and about 300 part-time jobs, not including the few hundred that will be needed to build the center.

This is also not the only project in the works bringing jobs to Benton.

“This just happens to be a retail center, other opportunities are going on, with new apartment complexes being built, our Riverside Park, which is under construction is probably going to…the construction right now going on is probably going to create 600-700 jobs,” said Benton Mayor David Mattingly.

The Shoppe of Benton will cost $28.3 million to build, including the land purchased said Mattingly. According to city officials:

$1.7 million will be collected in sales taxes within the first year
$25,000 – Benton property taxes
$54,000 – Saline County property taxes
$236,000 – Benton School District
$1.4 million – City of Benton

“We’ve got a very productive, very supportive council…and the mayor is really moving forward…he keeps us on our toes and keeps us moving, he’s like a cowboy, he keeps spurring us on to do things and I think we’ve been successful,” said Benton City Council member Charles Cunningham.

City officials tell Channel 7 they hope to have both the Riverside Park and the Shoppe of Benton complete by March 2017.

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