Moving Forward

Experts argue over exactly how important good roads and other transportation facilities are to economic growth, but they agree about one thing—development is much more likely to happen in places with good highway links than in those without them.

That puts St. Landry Parish in an enviable position at the crossroads of federal highways that stretch well beyond our borders and as a place that has chosen to make a substantial investment in a modern road system within the parish.

Generally, according to transportation studies, good roads are important to the flow of raw materials, capital, finished goods, workers, consumers, and ideas within an area.

The road network in St. Landry is attractive to commercial and industrial businesses that are starting to recognize “not only the transportation benefits, but also the benefit of being able to bring in a workforce from a broad geographic area without the tangle of the metro congestion that presents growing challenges in the center of Acadiana,” according to Bill Rodier director of St. Landry Economic Development.

In addition, St. Landry has about $42.5 million in road work currently under contract and plans to open bids for several million more over the coming 12 months to practically rebuild the internal parish road system, according to parish president Bill Fontenot, a civil engineer and former highway department administrator. Completion of the project will make it easier to move goods and people within the parish, he says, as well as provide convenience to potential shoppers and business travelers.

“These roads will not only pave the way for residents and school buses and visitors to our parish, but they will be an important part of the infrastructure that makes St. Landry more and more attractive to a growing number of businesses,” Fontenot said.

In St. Landry, “our transportation system, in particular the I-49 and U.S. 190 corridors, put us in a very unique competitive position,” Rodier notes. “These important highways effectively divide a 1,000-square-mile parish in relatively equal quadrants, which dramatically improves the accessibility to the entire parish for residents, visitors, and commercial traffic.”

I-49 runs north-south through the center of St. Landry, stretching from Shreveport to Lafayette, where it joins U.S. 90, which continues on to New Orleans.  As planned, it will ultimately link New Orleans to Kansas City.  U.S. 190 stretches east-west across Louisiana and on to west Texas.

Those roads make it an easy drive from St. Landry to the major Louisiana cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Shreveport and Lake Charles; and put us less than a day away from major metro areas such as Dallas, Houston, and Mobile.

“Retailers are looking at many of our parish locations with formulas that now take into account a much larger number of potential shoppers who will be able to reach their stores quicker and easier,” Rodier notes. “That ease of transportation also is important to investors who are looking for a place where it is easy for workers to get to their jobs and easy to move the goods they produce,” he said.

“We have seen recent direct evidence of this with a new Wal-Mart project on the retail side (as well as the location here some years ago  of the Wal-Mart distribution center) and, on the industrial side, the Hazelwood project  that will not only use our roads, but our full complement of transportation infrastructure, including waterways, pipelines, and railroads,” Rodier continued.

A Neighborhood Wal-Mart is currently under construction at the intersection of South Union Street and Heather Drive in Opelousas. It will create 85 to 100 new jobs. Hazelwood Energy Hub plans to build a $400 million facility near Hwy. 190 that can store and blend custom crude oil for Louisiana refineries and other customers, a development that will create 200 or more construction jobs, and more than 120 high paying permanent jobs.

“It is likely that we will have additional announcements over the next 60 to 90 days on either the I-49, or U.S. 190 that will continue to show that these important transportation assets are being recognized for their growth potential by economic development and as a real opportunity by varied sectors of the business community,” according to Rodier.