Weatherford Gemoco gets $1.2 million boost

Weatherford Gemoco’s new $45 million facility on Louisiana Highway 311 north of U.S. 90 will benefit from $1.2 million in federal and state funding.

Terrebonne Economic Development Authority CEO Mike Ferdinand told the Terrebonne Parish Council’s Budget and Finance Committee at its meeting Monday that the money-$300,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds and $900,000 from the state-will help pay for an access road, a gas line and a waterline for the Gemoco facility.

The total cost will be $2.18 million to construct the infrastructure, which will be donated to Terrebonne Parish after completion. Gemoco is paying the balance of the cost.

The federal money for the project is part of the CDBG economic-development funds administered by Terrebonne Parish. Through the CDBG program, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development regularly grants money to local governments seeking to aid businesses in locating to underutilized and low-income areas.

The access road will cost $1.77 million. The price for the waterline and the gas line will be $389,500 and $28,500, respectively.

Gemoco had wanted to construct the new facility in Texas, which would have removed around 400 jobs from Terrebonne Parish. TEDA, working with Terrebonne Parish and state officials, put together an incentive package for Gemoco that convinced the company to remain in Terrebonne.

Funding for the state’s share of the infrastructure improvements was approved on July 20.

Also on Monday, Terrebonne Parish Dept. of Planning and Zoning Director Pat Gordon and Senior Planner Leesa Foreman spoke to the Council’s Community Development and Planning Committee about zoning changes needed for the commercial corridors along Louisiana Highway 24 in Bayou Cane and Louisiana Highway 311, stretching for several miles north and south of Savanne Road.

The number of people living in residential sections around the corridors is expected to grow sharply over the next 20 years, Gordon told the committee. Bayou Cane’s population, which was 17,000 in 2000, will increase by 14 percent, while the population of the area around La. 311 will leap by 50 percent.

Gordon said he wants to keep commercial developments from encroaching on residents.

Both areas have relatively high land elevations.

Foreman focused more on the visual appeal of future land developments along the corridors.

Commercial structures in the corridor areas will look better than the string of big boxes on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Houma, she told the committee.

“I’ve gotten complaints about the sea of cement, and the walls of concrete” on Martin Luther King, she said.

“If you’ve tried to walk from PETsMART to Marshalls to Office Depot, there are cars swinging in,” Foreman said. “It’s not pedestrian friendly.”

She wants the spaces in front of future buildings along the La. 24 and La. 311 corridors to have shared parking, with no barriers between companies’ parking lots. This would allow traffic to circulate, preventing cars from having to enter the highway to get to the business next door.

“We’re going to require it to be more visually pleasing,” she said. “We’ll have masonry facades and landscaping to break the harshness, break the walls, and give it architectural character.”