The Planning Commission has cleared the way for commercial construction to begin at Rouzan, the 100-acre Traditional Neighborhood Development on Perkins Road in Southdowns.
At its meeting Monday night, the commission approved changes to Rouzan’s final development plan to allow for a 29,800-square-foot Sprouts Farmers Market, 32,000-square-foot restaurant and retail building, and 216 parking spaces on a 4.43-acre parcel that will be the Rouzan Village Center.
The changes are significant because commercial development at Rouzan has been stalled for years. Previously approved plans for a much more intense commercial use—a 32,000-square-foot Alamo Drafthouse cinema, 32,000-square-foot commercial building and five-story parking garage—fell through in 2016, after Alamo Drafthouse walked away from the deal with the project’s original developer Tommy Spinosa.
In 2017, however, Spinosa lost his financing, when the feds shut down his lender on the project. Early this year, developers John Engquist and Charles Landry acquired ownership of all but two small parcels of the property. In the months since, they’ve begun to get the TND back on track.
Landry says construction on the supermarket, which will be the first Sprouts location in Louisiana, is scheduled to begin in June, and that the store has targeted a March 2019 opening.
While the start of commercial construction at Rouzan is significant, it is particularly noteworthy that the proposed changes to the project’s plans had support of the Southside Civic Association, which initially tried to defeat Rouzan and even years later remained at odds with Spinosa.
By contrast, four board members spoke in favor of the proposed changes Monday night, which Landry attributed to “excellent, collaborative contact with the SSCA” over the past few months.
“We’re thrilled we’ve come this far this fast,” he says.
Ironically, Spinosa has retained ownership of the 4.43-acre parcel on which the Rouzan Village Center will be developed, as well as a small residential parcel in the rear of the development.
Because Spinosa has no debt on the property, however, Landry says the commercial development will not run into the kinds of problems Spinosa has had in the past and insists the village center will be done right.
“He has all his financing and he has all his equity and is in terrific shape as a result of our acquisitions,” Landry says. “We have oversight of the project and have approved all of the designs.”
