The first Missouri location of Scotty's Brewhouse opened in Poplar Bluff in April, following several years of fast growth by the city.
The restaurant is one of the final pieces of the Eight Points Shopping Center on Oak Grove Road. The retail area is also expected to include an 84-room Fairfield Inn by 2019.
Development at the north Poplar Bluff retail area has topped $75 million since Menards first opened in 2014, owners have reported.
Locations for Academy Sports + Outdoors, Ross Dress for Less, Jimmy John's, PetSmart, Shoe Carnival, Rhodes 101/Imo's and Dollar Tree opened there in 2017.
Expansion along Oak Grove Road started in 2013, with opening of the $173 million Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center. The seven-story hospital is located on a 60-acre site, that includes a $4 million physicians office building.
North Poplar Bluff will also see the addition in the summer of 2018 of a new home for First Missouri State Bank on Barron Road. The nearly $7 million building will have two floors and top 18,000 square feet, according to documents filed with the city planning department.
City leaders have said construction of a five-lane highway between Oak Grove Road and Highway 53 has helped spur growth.
Ground broke in September 2017 on the second half of Shelby Road, an approximately $10.4 million extension from Kanell Boulevard to Highway 53.
Construction is expected to take about 18 months.
"The growth of Poplar Bluff over the last five years has been amazing," said city manager Mark Massingham. "The addition of the new hospital, Eight Points and the addition of new businesses in Valley Plaza and Mansion Mall and other areas in town has once again made Poplar Bluff a retail hub for Southeast Missouri."
This area has a lot to offer with the lakes and rivers and other outdoor activities, Massingham continued.
All of this makes Poplar Bluff a great place to live and work, and also a great place to visit and spend time in the great outdoors, he continued. The past year was also marked by the opening of Starbucks in Mansion Mall, ULTA Beauty at Valley Plaza Shopping Mall and Planet Fitness at the former Hastings location on Westwood Boulevard.
The national gym franchise occupies nearly 28,000-square-foot, and added full locker rooms, showers, restrooms, a tanning area and an area for massages.
J.C. Penney has started renovations to create a 1,500-square-foot location for Sephora inside their South Westwood Boulevard location. The $180,000 project will add beauty products on the right hand side of the main entrance.
Work will also continue in 2018 on an Aspen Dental location at Eight Points, next to Jimmy John's.
Historic downtown Poplar Bluff was joined in 2017 by the locally owned Foxtrot Coffee and Bronze Owl Brewing at renovated buildings on Vine Street.
The downtown area also celebrated the opening of a new dog park along the Black River, and recognition of Hays Music and the 1908 building the business occupies.
Hays operates from the Begley building, which was constructed by a blacksmith that arrived in Poplar Bluff with a box of tools and 65 cents to his name. George Begley Sr. manufactured everything from horse drawn vehicles to coffins, and offered up his building for use as a temporary courthouse after the 1927 tornado devastated the downtown area.