Interesting information gleaned about Lake Charles (Harvey, Sulphur: real estate, apartment, foreclosure)

[cBach]

Originally Posted by pandorafan5687

I believe that that is going to be a towneplace suites. It's set to open in the spring. GN is building a second tower.

Okay thanks I was wondering about that. Marriott seems to like to cluster their buildings next to each other. For instance the Residence Inn is right next to the Springhill Suites...

[pandorafan5687]

Originally Posted by cBach

Okay thanks I was wondering about that. Marriott seems to like to cluster their buildings next to each other. For instance the Residence Inn is right next to the Springhill Suites...

That's true. Plus two more Hilton brand hotels (Tru and Home2Suites), a Holiday Inn Express and a Staybridge Suites are being constructed next to the Hampton Inn.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by cBach

Also, the name of the hotel in Hackberry will be called MainStay Suites Hackberry Sportman's Lodge with a deep sea fishing theme. There will be a seafood restaurant on-site after construction of the hotel.

The hotel will be built to Florida hurricane standards, which means it will be resistant to a Cat 5 Hurricane.

Mainstay Suites Hackberry will open September 15, 2017. Exciting news for Hackberry, their first hotel!

https://www.choicehotels.com/louisia...y-hotels/la346

[bpollen]

What L.C. needs, IMO, to make it a better city is much more white collar business. LC should be courting that. It has lots of blue collar in the industries, and that's great. It has the gambling, and that's great. Now it needs some robust growth in white collar businesses near the downtown area.

My family tells me that years ago Conoco wanted to set up a headquarters of sorts for a division in LC. It would've taken up an entire building. That would've cost an investor or the city, or both, a pretty penny to build or remodel a building for it. Instead of doing all it could to make sure this happened, LC voted no, so Conoco went to Lafayette, where the city officials were waiting, drooling, on I-10 to welcome them with tax cuts, a building, and other perks.

So I think that LC hasn't had the kind of leadership it deserves. When you get a big white collar office, you have all these people that form a tax base. Then they buy products and services (groceries, cars, car repairs, medical, clothing), and they buy houses. These jobs pay decently, and the workers tend to be law abiding and have families.

Once you get some businesses in an area, it attracts other businesses. It's a snowball effect.

Then there are the harsh changes in the residential areas of LC. I returned after years being away and was shocked to see what LC had become. What had been fairly nice subdivisons were now ghetto-like crime-ridden streets, with burglaries on every street, junk in front yards, overgrown grass. But to buy in a nicer neighborhood cost over $280,000...in a city where the average wage is mid-$30s or so, I think.

And the flooding. I saw one gully where water used to flow out...backed up, not moving, overgrown with green algae. Looked like it had been blocked by a builder building a new subdivision. That used-to-be-gully-but-now-mosquito-infested-huge-ditch ran behind a number of houses. Newer areas of Moss Bluff have flooding because of improper planning for drainage. I saw flooding on streets here that had never flooded in my lifetime growing up here.

The crime here has gotten really bad. I'm not sure why. Drugs?

So I think that's a leadership issue. People with savvy and know-how on what to do to ensure an area grows and prospers. And the moxie to do the hard things.

Then there are the taxes. Areas in and around L.C. charge a slightly higher sales tax, incl. on food and prescription drugs, which Lafayette does not, I believe. It's unusual for local areas to tax food and prescription drugs. LC is one of the rare places that does...I think. Maybe someone else can clarify. It's not that much a difference, but for a family deciding a place to move to, all these nickel & dime things can add up and give one an impression of a place: Is it friendly for law abiding families that want to settle down, spend money locally, build a nestegg for retirement, have decent housing in crime-free areas that don't flood?

[cameronwkingery]

Lake Charles will expand. In my opinion, the expansion should happen south of the city, out towards the countryside. I feel that the countryside will be the only place for Lake Charles to expand. They recently just finished the Ham Reid traffic circle, which to me says that they are expecting to grow further south of the city. They even put up new gas stations 2 years ago off of Nelson past Ham Reid. Lake Charles is expecting a large expansion within the next 5-10 years. I'm excited to see Lake Charles grow to be a bigger city. Downtown expansion in Lake Charles also needs to happen. Ryan Street is still the main drag just like it was back in the day. There's more area downtown to play around with. Maybe another park? There's also the question of what they'll do with the empty, torn down lots downtown. Such places like the corner of Bilbo and Mill, which was once The Panorama Burger House. To me, it would be cool to see the 50s-60s burger diner make a comeback. Getting back to the topic of the southern, countryside expansion, Morganfield is an excellent example of that expansion. It is basically becoming its own community. Again, it will be very interesting to see what the new mayor of the town decides to do to allow Lake Charles to grow.

[cameronwkingery]

With growth in the city, comes the demand for more attractions, however. All I see for people to do around here is eat. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but there needs to be more to Lake Charles than restaurants on every block. I'm not sure what they're planning to do with the property off of Prien Lake Rd. that's next to Target. I'm hoping they don't keep throwing up hotels. Lake Charles is missing a lot of key attractions that bigger cities have. That would be a great area to add some attractions or maybe even an outlet mall. Something other than hotels needs to be placed on that lot in my opinion. I'm sure being a younger kid, much of my opinion is probably silly, but it will be my generation that is going to live in this place and further the growth and development of this city.

[pandorafan5687]

LC needs to expand east as well, there's land galore out there. I want to see the city grow as a whole, not just the south and the west. We need to expand our shopping options, job opportunities to include the technology and research sectors. The freeway system needs to be expanded. A north 210 loop is probably out of the question at this point, but I think a US171 alternate route could work that would connect with LA-3059 and then connect LA-3059 with Moss Bluff.

[bpollen]

Originally Posted by cameronwkingery

Lake Charles will expand. In my opinion, the expansion should happen south of the city, out towards the countryside. I feel that the countryside will be the only place for Lake Charles to expand. They recently just finished the Ham Reid traffic circle, which to me says that they are expecting to grow further south of the city. They even put up new gas stations 2 years ago off of Nelson past Ham Reid. Lake Charles is expecting a large expansion within the next 5-10 years. I'm excited to see Lake Charles grow to be a bigger city. Downtown expansion in Lake Charles also needs to happen. Ryan Street is still the main drag just like it was back in the day. There's more area downtown to play around with. Maybe another park? There's also the question of what they'll do with the empty, torn down lots downtown. Such places like the corner of Bilbo and Mill, which was once The Panorama Burger House. To me, it would be cool to see the 50s-60s burger diner make a comeback. Getting back to the topic of the southern, countryside expansion, Morganfield is an excellent example of that expansion. It is basically becoming its own community. Again, it will be very interesting to see what the new mayor of the town decides to do to allow Lake Charles to grow.

Some may call it countryside. I call it the old rice fields south of town on the way to Cameron.

LC has to grow south. There's really no other good way to go.

[cBach]

One thing to consider is that South of town is more prone to flooding, just think what hurricanes do to Cameron Parish and you are basically going to have that risk.

Realistically expanding East towards Iowa and North past Moss Bluff is where the higher ground is. I'm not saying they shouldn't expand South, but if they do they need to plan for flooding. Giant culverts and drainage projects and the slabs of the homes need to be higher.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by cameronwkingery

With growth in the city, comes the demand for more attractions, however. All I see for people to do around here is eat. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but there needs to be more to Lake Charles than restaurants on every block. I'm not sure what they're planning to do with the property off of Prien Lake Rd. that's next to Target. I'm hoping they don't keep throwing up hotels. Lake Charles is missing a lot of key attractions that bigger cities have. That would be a great area to add some attractions or maybe even an outlet mall. Something other than hotels needs to be placed on that lot in my opinion. I'm sure being a younger kid, much of my opinion is probably silly, but it will be my generation that is going to live in this place and further the growth and development of this city.

Because of the casino, the area near Target will see a lot of hotels. There are a lot of gamblers that don't want to pay the high prices of a hotel room at L'Auberge or Golden Nugget.