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NATCHEZ — It’s official. Jimmy Smith himself said Hobby Lobby has signed and will locate a store in Natchez.

“Hobby Lobby is coming right here where we are standing,” Smith said as he and about 60 others celebrated Smith’s redevelopment of the Trace Town Shopping Center on Tuesday afternoon at the site of what many remember as Sears.

“In 1975, about 50 years ago, half of Natchez was in line over there to see the movie Jaws. I was one of them,” he said.

Smith reminisced about stores that were located in Trace Town during his childhood and its heyday, and a number in the crowd joined in the recollection of time spent in Winn-Dixie, T.J McCrory’s, Pasquale Pizza, Medical Arts Pharmacy, Benoist’s, The Diamond Shop, Case’s Shoes, Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream and, of course, Sears, the shopping center’s anchor store.

“This place is near and dear to my heart, too,” said Natchez Inc. Executive Director Chandler Russ. “My mother would buy my Husky blue jeans right here at Sears back in the day.”

What will replace Trace Town is the most significant development to happen in Natchez in approximately 40 years.

“We will have a futuristic, first-class shopping center right here in about 18 months from now,” Smith said. “This will be the biggest development in Natchez in a long time. It will be $30 to $40 million altogether. It’s the biggest one we have done.”

Smith owns Trace Town Redevelopment LLC and Natchez Hardware Inc. He said he began negotiating to buy Trace Town from its long-time owners in 2022.

“This has been a long, drawn-out process,” Smith said. “They didn’t really want to sell and have had numerous people try to buy it over the years. With good luck and maybe some succession planning, I was at the right place at the right time.”

In the beginning, he said he intended to develop only the area of the former Sears store and tear the rest down. However, a partnership with Noon Development Co., convinced Smith they would help attract tenants and help him through the development process.

“We had to go out and convince retailers that Natchez could support this,” Smith said.

He said demographics about Natchez stop at the river and fail to consider the 25,000 or so people who make their homes right across the river in Louisiana.

Smith said four other large tenants and four smaller tenants will join Hobby Lobby in the shopping complex.

“We have LOIs (letters of intent) signed for four large tenants and we will have four smaller tenants. You sign an LOI before you sign a lease,” he said. “We are getting plans drawn up for them as we speak.”

He did not name those potential tenants.

Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson congratulated Smith on what he is doing for Natchez.

“Today is Jimmy Smith Day. It would not be happening without you. We are going to wait until he gets this all built to give him a key to the city. But Jimmy, it would not be happening without you. I am so grateful for your vision for this. You got a hold of this like a hound dog gets a hold of a good ol’ soup bone and you never let go,” Gibson said.

Gibson said he hopes the groundbreaking will satisfy the naysayers.

“There are some today that still don’t believe in something called the Natchez Renewal, but we all know the Natchez Renewal is not only real, has not only been historic, but it is continuing to roll and no one is going to slow this train,” he said.

“For those who still want to hold out skepticism, we are working with County Pie today to have a special Crow Pie on their menu. I think there are some people who don’t necessarily live in Natchez but live outside of Natchez and love to run our city down every day when we are doing so much to build it up. But I hope they like the taste of crow because they will get their share of Crow Pie today and in the weeks and months to come,” Gibson said.

President of the Adams County Board of Supervisors Kevin Wilson thanked Smith.

“Jimmy Smith and I go way back. When I was 14 years old, my dad was running the Pit Grill, which was where Little Tokyo is, and Jimmy and a sidekick were there every day for coffee — maybe two or three times a day. I was serving him coffee and thinking how this guy would go somewhere one day. He just had that about him,” Wilson said.

“When he sold Home Hardware, he could have quit and done anything he wanted to do, but here he is pouring all this money back into Natchez and Jimmy, we really appreciate you for all you’ve done over the years with Home Hardware and everything else you’ve done. He’s always been a straight up guy with me and for me and we appreciate you,” he said.

Russ thanked Smith and those who are helping with the project.

“I lived and breathed this whole area growing up. I can’t thank Jimmy and his partners enough for their investment in this project and their financial commitment. Brian Massey, too. He’s been handling the fine details. We appreciate his efforts, as well,” Russ said.