Ascension Parish Government has a purchase agreement in place for approximately 110 acres near the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center that officials hope to develop into a new sports complex.
In an email to Ascension Business Report, the parish government said attorneys and real estate agents are working to finalize the agreement, but the parish does not yet have an expected closing date. Once the acquisition is complete, the parish plans to hire a firm to develop conceptual layouts and cost estimates for the proposed complex. No funding plan has been established, according to the parish government.
The 110-acre property is along Edenborne near River Parishes Community College.
Ascension Parish Council chairman Chase Melancon discussed the proposed acquisition during a social media question-and-answer video session earlier this month, saying officials hope to close on the property by the end of this year or early next year. Melancon said the purchase price is about $2.6 million.
“There are so many heirs on this large parcel. There are some companies and this thing goes back generations, and whenever they went out there and did the survey, the surveying numbers aren’t exactly matching up,” Melancon said in the video. “They are just crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s.”
Melancon also said in the video that he plans to propose putting video poker legalization before Ascension voters and has suggested dedicating 60% of the resulting revenue to recreation and 40% to transportation.
The new sports complex would expand the parish’s existing sports infrastructure in the Lamar-Dixon area. Lamar-Dixon currently has seven lighted and irrigated athletic fields as well as a climate-controlled gym that can accommodate basketball and volleyball. In 2017, parish officials unveiled a $4.5 million investment that included seven soccer fields designed in part to attract regional tournaments.
