Community members will gather Wednesday night to discuss whether the old Coca-Cola plant could be a new sign of hope for Highway 80.

While redevelopment of the abandoned factory and warehouse space, which shut its doors in 2007, is still in the planning stages, the Jackson Community Design Center sees the space it now calls the old Cola plant, as an important development for Highway 80.

"The Coca-Cola Bottling Company is a potential anchor and a prime candidate to begin an effort of renewal and revitalization on the Highway 80 corridor," the JCDC, an urban research laboratory at the Mississippi State School of Architecture's fifth-year Jackson Center, explained in a June 2010 post on its website. ~ JFP.ms