Delta Regional Authority grant enabled West Monroe sports facility, officials say

Stacy Albritton Mitchell, mayor of West Monroe, Louisiana, said a drainage grant from the Delta Regional Authority helped the city fix a long-standing drainage problem and enabled the development of the 110,000-square-foot West Monroe Sports and Event Facility in the Point West commercial park.

Mitchell told attendees at the facility that the city received $1,300,000 from the Delta Regional Authority and contributed $1,100,000 in local funds to the drainage project. "We did put in 1,100,000.0, but we would have never been able to afford that this size of project on our own," she said, noting the 2018 drainage correction paved the way for the sports complex and surrounding development.

The mayor said the project has generated economic activity in the area, creating about 150 direct jobs and roughly 200 indirect jobs and attracting businesses to the site adjacent to Interstate 20. Robert George of S. E. Huey Company, the project's lead designer, said his firm provided engineering and surveying services and that the Surge Entertainment Center has opened and a regional call center has retained and added jobs since the project's completion.

Mitchell highlighted the site's advantages, saying the 60-acre Point West property is adjacent to Interstate 20 and has two interstate exits that flank the property, which she described as important for future development. "With DRA's investment, we were able to obviously complete a project that otherwise would have not been able to have been done," she said.

The mayor closed by thanking the Delta Regional Authority for supporting investments in smaller communities. "Thank you for doing what you can for smaller communities so that they can have the economic impact that we're able to have now because of this investment," Mitchell said.

No formal motions or votes were recorded in the remarks; speakers were reporting on completed work and its economic effects.