"This is huge for Gilbert," Doreen Cott, a business development specialist with the town tells GlobeSt.com. "The businesses that will locate there will bring substantial tax revenue into the town." That infusion of revenue, however, remains in the distant future.

The Gilbert Crossroads Mall, a one-million-sf regional shopping center planned for a 600-acre site is still years away. Westcor Development, which will build the mall, is still formulating the plans with construction scheduled for sometime after the freeway is completed in 2006, Cott said.

But construction on a power center to be built near that interchange is scheduled to begin in mid-2003 with completion scheduled in spring 2004. That power center, which also will be developed by Westcor, will be the site of a 206,000-sf Wal-Mart Supercenter and a 135,000-sf Sam's Club, the town's senior planner, Jim Cronk tells GlobeSt.com. That first phase of the development also will include a multi-screen Harkins theater.