In the News

MANSFIELD, La. – DeSoto Parish police jurors learned Tuesday a long sought-after federal grant to save jobs at an industrial park by improving the access road has been funded.

The process has taken two years and several sometimes-contentious meetings to get to this point. At one time, a business owner at the Interstate 49 Industrial Park said he was making alternate plans to move elsewhere after spending money out of his pocket trying to maintain the gravel road. He said he was tired of dealing with flooding problems during heavy rainfall and paying for damage to his trucks and his employees’ vehicles because of the road’s condition.

One company has already pulled out of the industrial park, said Police Juror Reggie Roe, who also chairs the Coordinating and Development Corporation board that worked on the grant application.

“But this new road will save the rest of those jobs,” which is estimated at about 219, Roe said.

The road that has caused all of the headache is Park Road. It parallels I-49 and connects to state Highway 175 at the Frierson exit.

It was built as a frontage road during the interstate’s construction to provide a single property owner access to a well. But several years after I-49 opened, the industrial park was developed.

The park ebbed and flowed until the Hayesville Shale development days, when it became a popular spot for oil and gas companies to locate. The later slowdown in the natural gas play also impacted the number of businesses there.

But several stayed put and new ones have set up shop. There are nine oil and gas related companies there now with an estimated $35 million investment.

The DeSoto Parish Police Jury and state Department of Transportation and Development went back and forth during the past few years on who really owns Park Road. The dispute was finally settled last summer when DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson, during a meeting with some parish officials, acknowledged the road is the state’s property.

However, Wilson made it known the state wasn’t willing to spend much more money keeping it up, including the bridge mid-way on the road that he said wasn’t initially built to withstand the traffic there now. The bridge also goes underwater during rainstorms.

So, the Police Jury began looking at options and came up with a proposal to buy property from property owners on the back side of the industrial park so that an alternate road, which would connect directly to Highway 175, could be built to handle the heavy truck traffic.

But with a price tag in the millions, police jurors looked to grants to fund the project. The application for a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Economic Development finally got the push it needed with the adjoining landowners finally put their commitment in writing.

Roe said he received word late Tuesday afternoon that the grant, to which U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, added his support, was approved and paperwork was on Gov. John Bel Edwards’ desk to sign.

The grant requires a 25% match from the Police Jury, which is included in the capital projects budget for this year, parish Administrator Michael Norton said Thursday.

Norton said he hopes construction plans can be completed in the coming months so the project can be bid by the end of the year.

The Police Jury still must narrow down its preferred route from two proposals, Norton said.

Roe is optimistic even more businesses will set their sights on the industrial park. And the neighboring landowners could look at selling their own commercial lots.

"This will open it up more," Roe said. 

Current businesses anticipate creating 118 new jobs through expansion, Roe said.