Mississippi’s first Buc-ee’s will mean a $15M makeover for Menge Avenue exit
Two big projects approved Tuesday by the Harrison County Supervisors move along plans for a Buc-ee’s travel center at Menge Avenue and a 300,000-square-foot sorting and distribution center in the Bernard Bayou Industrial Park in Gulfport.
The distribution center is a $50 million project, said Bill Lavers, executive director of the Harrison County Development Authority. He isn’t yet able to identify the tenant, he said.
“Buc-ee’s is a $50 million project, too,” he said.
The two will create more than 700 jobs, he said, but it will be more than two years before they open.
This will be the first Buc-ee’s in Mississippi.
Texas-based Buc-ee’s Travel Centers are known for their massive square footage, long aisle of gasoline pumps, huge gift shop, food selections like beaver nuggets and “the world’s cleanest restrooms.”
The approval from the supervisors is for $15 million in improvements to the Menge Avenue exit, taking it from two to five lanes, Lavers said, across the interstate and to the access roads.
“It will help the whole neighborhood,” he said.
While everyone is “ecstatic” about the new Bucee’s, “this is barely even the beginning,” Lavers said. It will be two years or more before people will actually be able to walk in and get their beaver nuggets, he said.
Meanwhile he is working on several other projects.
Lavers said within the next week Rock Island Railway will start service to all tenants in the industrial park on Seaway Road in Gulfport.
FL Crane is getting ready to open on the industrial park in Saucier, he said, and he has two other tenants signed, a steel manufacturer out of Tupelo and a training facility, plus he is working on a deal for 300 acres at the park, he said.
This story was originally published July 6, 2021 at 11:05 AM.
