NATCHEZ — The Natchez Board of Aldermen approved two measures at its meeting Tuesday evening that will allow Jimmy Smith, owner and developer of Tracetown Shopping Center, to recoup up to 2.5 times what it will cost to clean up a 3.5-acre portion of the property.

Trey Hess of PPM Consultants said the Mississippi Economic Redevelopment Act, first passed by the legislature in 2008 and refined in 2013 to incentivize private sector development, will allow Smith to be reimbursed 2.5 times the cost of cleaning up the brownfield site known as Tracetown Phase 1.

Hess said the cost of cleanup is estimated to be $626,000.

“The Mississippi Economic Redevelopment Act allows the developer who takes all of the financial risk and environmental risk of cleanup the opportunity to receive up to 2.5 times the cleanup cost in the sales tax generated from the new business on the site that he will clean up,” Hess said. “It is entirely dependent upon the success of the business plan that would generate revenue on the site.”

While neither Hess nor Smith, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, provided specifics of how the 3.5 acres will be developed, Smith and his company received approval to subdivide a 3.58 acre portion of the property at a city planning commission meeting last week. Also at that meeting, Hayden Kaiser of Jordan Kaiser Sessions, an engineering firm working on the project, asked about the approval of the site plan for Hobby Lobby and said the company wanted to get started on a new store in Tracetown soon.

Smith, in a social meeting exchange following a Democrat story about the planning commission meeting, would not confirm Hobby Lobby will locate here. He wrote nothing “has been signed.”

“This is a private sector project that’s really encouraging because it brings growth and it brings jobs to town,” Hess told the aldermen.

He said Smith’s brownfield cleanup plan for phase one of the Tracetown Shopping Center Redevelopment Project has been approved by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

“The Mississippi Economic Redevelopment Act has been touted at the National Brownfield Conference a couple of years ago as the best brownfield cleanup incentive in the nation because of its balance between protecting human health and the environment, encouraging private sector investment and good local, state and private coordination,” Hess said following the meeting.

“I just want to thank you, Mr. Smith, because this property sat for so long with an out-of-town owner and he was approached many, many times about doing something with it to help Natchez and a local person bought it and has now taken that action,” Mayor Pro Tem and Ward 3 Alderwoman Sarah Carter Smith said to Smith.

“This is the first phase. We will be back for a second,” Smith said.

“Since the beginning of our administration we have been doing all we can to turn brownfields into greenfields, areas in our city that have been blighted and now can become centers of new opportunity,” Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said after the meeting. “This old Tracetown Shopping Center is one of those sites. We are grateful to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and Mr. Trey Hess, our consulting engineer, for helping to make this possible. Working with the property owner, this will be great for Natchez. And the financial incentives are outstanding.”

Gibson was out of town on city business and did not attend Tuesday’s meeting. Smith, mayor pro-tem, ran the meeting.