By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Alabaster officials are working to recruit more retailers for the “Alabaster Exchange” shopping center, and are working to construct the shopping center in 2014, said Alabaster Industrial Development Board Chairman and state Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster.

In October 2011, the Montgomery-based Aronov development company confirmed its plans to build the new 300,000-square-foot shopping center adjacent to Alabaster’s Colonial Promenade south shopping center.

“We have three big-box retailers we are in discussions with right now,” Ward said. “Like many others, we are at the whim of the economy.”

Ward previously said the city is looking to recruit businesses not currently in the Birmingham metropolitan area’s Interstate 65 corridor. Construction plans call for the new shopping center to be about the same size as the south wing of the Colonial Promenade shopping center.

If constructed, the shopping center will be sandwiched between U.S. 31 and Old Highway 31 south of the current J.C. Penny department store and the Steak ‘n Shake restaurant.

Ward said the plans likely will call for Fulton Springs Road to be straightened out to run through the middle of the new shopping center. Currently, Fulton Springs Road ends at its intersection with Old Highway 31, which is a few hundred feet south of U.S. 31.

“Everything is still on. We are still working on it and meeting with retailers,” Ward said.