Dirt flew at the unfinished Halls Ferry Station strip mall for the first time in more than six years Thursday as its planners said they hoped to land retail anchors this year.

“Nothing is cemented right now,” said Gary Andrews, a publicity manager for Yazoo City-based Action Properties LLC, which took over the shell of a building last May. “But, we hope to have something exciting for Vicksburg once it’s completed.”

The current ownership bought the center from Regions Bank, which had snapped up the property behind Walgreens in a foreclosure sale in 2007. Steel beams have stood in the shadows of the long-delayed shopping center since 2005 when walls were erected by Frazier Development LLC, the second of three previous owners.

Stores at the center will offer 60 to 75 jobs on a payroll of about $750,000 to $1 million, developer A.G. Helton said in September.

On Thursday, heavy equipment could be seen across the property, moving and smoothing dirt.

Once part of Halls Ferry Elementary School, the 30,000-square-foot center is part of a series of commercial construction planned by Ergon Properties of Jackson that began in 2003 with The Home Depot. The school had been demolished a year earlier. Walgreens was built in 2004.

Separately developed property nearby that became Cypress Centre Marketplace includes a hotel, now a Holiday Inn, and El Sombrero Mexican restaurant. Stores and other restaurants planned when the $25 million development began have not been built.