The retailer’s will join Aldi and Hobby Lobby in the $30 million retail development on Whittington Drive in Madisonville.

“The Shopping Center Group told us right after we made the announcement at the site back a couple of months ago, that this project is the largest retail development in the commonwealth for the next two years,” said Mayor Kevin Cotton. “That is huge for Madisonville and the region as a whole.”

“One of them we will be able to announce before Christmas is one every lady in this room will know,” Wiles said. “The other one will probably be March.”

“This whole 175,000 square feet (shopping center), all but about 10,000 square feet of it will be new to Madisonville,” Wiles said. “This will be the second store for something that is at the mall, but they are going to keep the other store.”

Madisonville Town Center, slated to open in the spring of 2025, is the second of at least three phases for the development. Phase one of the project, Aspen Dental and Starbucks, is currently under construction and slated to open in March of 2024 at the former Pizza Hut site. The third phase will be a national “sit down” restaurant, which will be located between the retail development and 5/3 Bank. That should open in the fall of 2025.

A potential fourth phase could go in on the western edge of the property. The Marriot hotel chain has toured the location and is interested in locating a Fairfield Inn there, but Wiles said his company isn’t exactly sold on that idea.

“We’re not hotel developers, we’re shopping center developers,” Wiles stated, although the company has not yet rules that idea out. “We’re not sure what we are going to do there.”