BREC is planning a major overhaul of its Airline Highway Park, better known as the Baton Rouge Fairgrounds.
The organization plans to issue a Request for Proposals by early June for a master plan to transform the 133.3-acre park into one of the system’s signature community parks, which offer more amenities than do neighborhood parks and are designed to serve a broader base.
The parish currently has 12 community parks but demand exists for a 13th, particularly in the high-growth area near the Ascension Parish line, according to a 2014 update to the agency’s strategic plan that identified a service gap in that area.
“If you live in Shenandoah, the closest community park is on Highland Road so there is a need,” says Reed Richard, BREC’s assistant superintendent.
Among the amenities envisioned for Airline Highway Park are tennis courts, elevated tracks, a recreation center, tournament baseball fields, and multi-use fields. The back side of the park, which sits in a flood plain, could be developed into an environmental and ecological attraction with boardwalks and a canoe launch on Bayou Manchac.
As for the park’s fairway fronting Airline Highway, which is home to the Baton Rouge State Fair, Richard says the RFP will seek solutions that would allow the central green to be redeveloped into a multipurpose space that could be used all year—whether the annual fair is held there or not.
BREC already has $3 million set aside for a new southeast community park, thanks to a millage voters re-upped in 2014. Originally, the money was earmarked to acquire property for the park but since BREC already owns the Airline Highway property, the funds can be put towards planning, design and construction.
An additional $2 million—generated from a pending sale of BREC property on Nicholson Drive—will also be put towards the project.
Separately, BREC has applied to the parish for a hazard mitigation grant to develop “safe rooms” at the park as part of a command center that would be activated during natural disasters but utilized for recreational purposes during the rest of the year.
Construction on the project could get underway as soon as early 2020.
