Bricks go up on Madison gateway

MADISON —Workers are continuing to brick the city’s new archway on Main Street leading into the Historic District.

“Construction workers are adding the bricks now,” said Janet Danks, assistant to Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler, earlier this week. “We are not sure when they’ll be finished with the brickwork, but they have started.”

Madison’s Gateway Arch is part of the Village at Madison commercial and residential development that is in the works that will include residential and commercial development such as the Half Shell Oyster House already in operation.

Main Street Investors, which includes partners Dr. Michael Manning of Ridgeland, Lee Stafford of West Point, and Mark Castleberry of Starkville, are developing the Village at Madison project.

Castleberry said in January that no city funds were used in the roughly $200,000 archway project, though the development as a whole will be eligible for Tax Increment Financing which diverts tax revenue to pay for specific infrastructure. 

“When it is completed, y’all will be so proud,” Hawkins-Butler said in a Facebook post in January when the metal framing for the archway went up.