In conjunction with today's ground-breaking for the President George Bush Turnpike connection, Mercer Crossing is finishing design plans for a second east-west artery within its bounds. Mercer Parkway will break ground in the summer, RL Lemke, Basic Capital Management's vice president of project development, tells GlobeSt.com.

The Super Connector kickoff was held at 11 a.m. today at Hickory Centre, an eight-story office building in Mercer Crossing. The road project, carrying a 2006 delivery, is considered "the missing link," which when done will connect Texas 183 in Irving to Texas 78 in Garland. Ultimately, the tollway will run from the fast-growing Plano to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

"You're going to see this green space fill up and it's going to explode in the next go-round (of development)," Lemke says. Investments are being made on both sides of the Trinity River by private developers, municipalities and the state, with a bottom line of some $3 billion in committed and planned infrastructure, including light-rail transit. Las Colinas PUD 4 is a New Urbanism project being steered by Cousins Properties Texas.

Mercer Crossing's development is under the watch of Gene E. Phillips, reputed to be Dallas' largest landowner and representative for a trust that controls a consortium of real estate-owning companies. Mercer Crossing is positioned at the epicenter of the planned projects, which effectively are shifting the demographic center of Dallas, Lemke says.