Moving Forward

St. Landry Parish shoppers are beginning to realize they can find everything they need in local stores, and a broad range of retailers are beginning to take notice of the opportunities offered here.

That translates into jobs and money in the local economy and the prospect of more to come, as well as a stronger tax base for parish and community governments, according to Bill Rodier, director of St. Landry Economic Development.

“We continue to get a growing number of inquiries by developers, realtors and site consultants on potential retail sites along the I-49 corridor,” Rodier said “They are taking a close look at the fact that the central part of St Landry Parish along I-49 draws retail consumers from a large geographic radius.

“This shopping pattern has led to very successful operations for retailers in place now and it is causing others to notice that there is an available market for the right national retailers to consider coming to St. Landry.”

Rodier points to the Neighborhood Wal-Mart currently under construction at the intersection of South Union Street and Heather Drive in Opelousas as validation of this retail sales market potential in the area.

“I believe we will continue to see this opportunity tapped by various retailors over the near term, and that there is an even brighter outlook for retail growth over the longer term,” he said.

The new Wal-Mart store has begun filling the 85 to 100 jobs it will create, according to its general manager, Fred Delafose. It is expected to open in mid-January.

The local Acadiana Works office is helping with recruitment. According to its director, Mike Morris, a hiring center will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays at the corner of Heather Drive and Jake Drive across from the St Landry Plaza. Applications can be done online, or in person at this center.

According to Wal-Mart, the new neighborhood store will be just over 40,000 square feet and “will have a strong focus on customer convenience and quality customer service.”

Rodier believes the new store could help keep Opelousas-area shoppers at home and help to create a growing retail center that will draw people from elsewhere.

“While this new store may provide some competition to the recently remodeled Super 1 facility directly adjacent to it, I believe that their combined synergy will soon create a shopping destination between the stores that 

will help curtail some of the retail shopping ‘leakage’ we are now seeing to Carencro and other locations outside the parish,” he said.

Stopping this “leakage” is important because it helps to keep essential tax dollars here in St Landry Parish, he notes. That’s important because those tax dollars have been going elsewhere in recent years.

St. Landry Parish sales tax collections for 2014 totaled $64.4 million, a jump of $4.6 million from the year before. That translated to an apparent 7.6 percent increase, but 2014 was the first to include the new Road District 1 tax, popularly known as the Smooth Ride Home program. That tax generated $6.2 million for the year. Collections through September of this year are ahead of the first nine months of 2014.

“Continued retail growth will create jobs that will bring new paychecks and people into the parish, and those two things—growing income and growing population–along with a good, accessible location, are exactly what other retailers want to see. Job growth builds job growth in a happy cycle of progress.”