The newly renamed Drusilla Village Shopping Center, which was purchased in April for $10.5 million by Donnie Jarreau Real Estate and will soon undergo a $2 million facelift, will also be getting a new anchor tenant.
LeBlanc’s Food Stores announced today it will open a LeBlanc’s Frais Marche in the shopping center later this year. The Gonzales-based supermarket chain, which will be opening its ninth location in south Louisiana and its first store in Baton Rouge, will be displacing Hi Nabor Supermarket, which has operated in the Drusilla shopping center for more than 20 years.
In a statement released today, Hi Nabor’s owners, the Crifasi family, say they are disappointed by the situation.
“Unfortunately, we have been unable to come to terms on a lease which would allow us to maintain the low prices we prided ourselves in offering our customers,” the store’s owners say.
The Crifasi family says in the statement that it will be relocating its Drusilla store “to a larger, newer and better store in the very near future,” but provides no further details.
While neither the Crifasi family nor Donnie Jarreau will discuss the differences over lease negotiations, shortly after Jarreau acquired the shopping center he made clear he planned big changes at the aging, mid-century strip mall. LeBlanc’s will be among them.
The supermarket chain says it will renovate and expand the 19,000-square-foot space occupied by Hi Nabor to nearly 30,000 square feet.
“The upgrades to the property will give shoppers in the area a fresh new perspective and we feel that the type of store that the LeBlanc family operates will really fit in well,” says Alex Knight of Donnie Jarreau Real Estate, who brokered the deal. “I think the people of Baton Rouge are going to be very impressed with what LeBlanc’s Frais Marche has to offer.”
LeBlanc’s will take over the space in August and immediately begin renovations, which are expected to take between three and four months.
Shortly after Jarreau aquired the shopping center, Pastime Junior also closed. Jarreau said then that the restaurant’s owners had decided not to renew their lease prior to his acquisition of the 140,000-square-foot center.
