Leonard Gray

HAHNVILLE – The long-discussed fairgrounds/civic center concept for St. Charles Parish took a leap off dead center Tuesday with the offer of a 34 acre site near U.S. Interstate 310 in Luling.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward A. Dufresne Jr., owner of Esperanza Plantation in the vicinity, offered the site, behind the railroad tracks from the St. Charles School Board office, for some public use, including a fairgrounds and/or administrative complex.

“It’s a prime location,” commented Debra Dufresne-Vial, speaking on behalf of her father. “And we need to get this approved and put together a first class facility.”

The tract is across from the planned Sugarland Parkway from the 40-acre site acquired from Dufresne in May 2000, where a school is eventually to be constructed.

Construction on the four-lane access road by Esperanza Land Co. is to begin soon, along with installation of necessary utility lines, Vial added.

Talks began on the possible donation of the site, appraised at $1,850,211, with Parish President Albert Laque in November. A resolution was introduced at Tuesday’s parish council meeting to accept the donation, to be voted upon at the Jan. 22 meeting.

Since Laque’s first term as parish president, when he and the council then established a civic center feasibility committee, the concept has been floated in the parish.

A March 1996 feasibility study was finally completed by the second-such committee formed and, in July 1996, requests for proposals were advertised among landowners. Dufresne at that time, among several others, submitted proposals. The state legislative delegation successfully pushed for funding through the Capital Outlay Bill.

However, with nothing of value, either money or land, to match the state funding, nothing ever came of the proposals and the project lingered.

“We’d kind of like to get it moving again,” Vial said.

Donation of the land would allow the parish to access state money already earmarked for the project’s development.

Vial said the site, behind the school board office and across a street from a new school, could present an opportunity for the parish government and school board to coordinate efforts and “master-plan” both projects at the same time.

Why proceed with the project at this time?

“If something doesn’t happen soon, it’ll be dropped,” Vial said. There are, however, two stipulations attached to the donation, Vial continued.

One is that the parish use the property for the public good. That means, for example, that the parish not turn around and sell the site to an industry for development. They also must get the project under way by Jan. 1, 2007, according to the stipulations.

The second stipulation is that whatever facility is built on the site be named for her grandfather, the late Edward A. Dufresne Sr.

The elder Dufresne purchased Esperanza Plantation in 1937 and, she said, he has “always been a supporter for recreational facilities.”

For example, Vial said, it was her grandfather who built the football fields for Hahnville and Destrehan high schools back in the 1940s.