The developer of the Jefferson Pointe retail center at 9844 Jefferson Highway has plans to build a 2.9-acre office park about a mile down the road, but he is waiting to get the green light from the city-parish Planning Commission.
Dr. Jay Yalamanchili says he wants to build something unique for the 32,000-square-foot development at 9026 Jefferson Highway, which will be called Westminster Office Park. But plans are still in the early stages, and he has not yet hired a contractor or architect. Yalamanchili says the office park’s design and construction will be similar to Jefferson Pointe, which was built in 2013 and is home to Cut Fine Jewelers and Pot & Paddle Jambalaya Kitchen.
According to the plan Yalamanchili has filed with the Planning Commission, the park will have 112 parking spots and the commercial and office space will fill only 25% of the total acreage. For the remaining space, 45% would be pavement and the remaining 30% would be open space.
Yalamanchili filed the permit application in July, but he was told he needed to conduct additional impact studies and submit those results before filing the application. He resubmitted the plan last week, and it will be taken up at the Planning Commission’s Nov. 16 meeting.
Developing the infrastructure on the vacant lot—which is to be located next to the offices of Maestri Murrell Commercial Real Estate, between Drusilla Lane and Bluebonnet Boulevard—will take about three to five months and construction is expected to take about two years, Yalamanchili says.
The office park will be divided into five or six brick buildings with shingled roofs. Yalamanchili, an allergologist and immunologist with offices in Denham Springs and Gonzales, says he hopes to turn one of the buildings in the office park into a medical office for a 24-urgent care facility or walk-in clinic. The others will either be sold or leased. The office park will be built piecemeal with only one or two buildings under construction at one time, he adds.
—Ryan Broussard
