Target is just the start at Marketplace in Lawton

First in — and first on people's minds — is a Target, which will take more than one-third of the space, some 134,000 square feet. Also in the first phase will be an Academy Sports & Outdoors and TJ Maxx, said Jeff Williams, vice president of Hunt Properties.

Dirt work began earlier this month. Stores are planned to open next summer.

“This is a project we've been working on for the better part of four years so it's gratifying to finally see construction under way,” Williams said.

Other stores are signed for the shopping center, as well. David Cassman, vice president of development for Hunt Properties, told the Lawton Constitution that stores will include Famous Footwear, Kirkland's, Dress Barn, Lane Bryant, PetSmart and Chuck E. Cheese.

Street and signal work is planned to handle the increase in traffic, the Lawton paper reported.

KSWO-TV reported that Lawton Marketplace is the biggest retail project in Lawton in 35 years. It sent TV reporter Scott Miller into poetry in a Sept. 9 report: “Texans toiling in tractors, turning topsoil,” he said of crews with Hill & Wilkinson, a Dallas-area contractor doing the work.