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Downtown Houma is about to get a major upgrade thanks to an overage in state hotel tax collections, some of which were allocated to Houma’s Main Street Program.
The group received an extra $375,000 collected from the state hotel and motel tax to be spent this year in addition to one-third more money each year, bringing Main Street’s budget up to $300,000 a year.
Main Street will use the extra money to further beautify downtown with landscaping and benches.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about economic development and keeping downtown vibrant so that way it’s an economic driver. Tourists want to be down here as well as the citizens of Terrebonne Parish, you know,” said Houma Main Street Program Manager Anne Picou. “But since it comes from hotel-motels, you do want to make it inviting for people visiting to hopefully stay overnight in those hotels.”
Some downtown business owners say they have seen positive changes to the area, but that more work lies ahead.
“If you look at downtown now versus even five years ago, it’s a huge improvement,” said Susan Brunet, owner of People’s Drug Store at 7869 Main St. “Five years ago, there [weren’t] as many businesses] … people were leaving as fast as they could.”
Among the reasons for flight, Brunet and other business owners said, were poor lighting and an overall perceptions that the area “seemed dangerous.”
HOTEL TAX PROVIDES FUNDING
Money for the new improvements came to the Downtown Development Corporation through a 4 percent tax Louisiana charges on hotel room rentals. The Downtown Development Corporation gets 1 percent of the tax collected from hotels in Terrebonne Parish by the state.
Normally, the Development Corporation dedicates around $225,000 a year to the Main Street Program in a lump sum to spend on improvements to the public spaces downtown, Picou said, but they’ve requested more. The state bumped the figure, giving Main Street an additional $375,000. It comes with a caveat: it must be spent within a year.
SPENDING ON UPGRADES
The bulk of the money has been budgeted for added lighting, irrigation systems and landscaping for three public parking lots.
The lots are at Suthon Street and West Park Avenue; Wilson and West Park Avenues – across Bayou Terrebonne near Le Petit Theatre – and the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum.
The total cost for irrigating and landscaping the Suthon lot, which was recently repaved, is about $80,000.
Bids for the Le Petit lot, which will soon have a pedestrian bridge leading to the playhouse, have not yet been advertised. The Waterlife Museum lot must first be repaved for landscaping to begin. The cost has yet to be determined.
Dana Brown & Associates, an architectural firm, is designing the parking lots. The Suthon parking lot design was billed at $8,000.
Improvements on Houma’s Bayou walk, stretching along Bayou Terrebonne from New Orleans Boulevard to Barataria Avenue, will include 10 new benches, four more fountains and 20 crime cameras on telephone poles. The cameras should cost between $60,000 and $70,000.
Picou said other improvements paid for by the windfall will include planters, new landscaping for the courthouse square, additional Christmas decorations and repairs to garbage cans downtown.
The project’s combined cost is projected at $294,200.
BUSINESSES SEE PROGRESS, MORE STILL TO BE DONE
People’s Drug Store owner Brunet said she likes that Main Street Houma is working to attract more businesses. But she also says some of the beautification projects don’t offer her business an advantage.
“I don’t think that the boardwalk, maybe, for example, or the fountains and benches and that sort of thing are maybe so beneficial to me,” Brunet said, “Because, I think, that type of situation is better suited for businesses that open toward the boardwalk.”
Brunet said lighting around Courthouse Square is more important right now than the Bayou walk, contending poor lighting is attracting vagrants at night. They make some business owners who are early-risers uncomfortable, she said. Also, she said the dim lighting is problematic for vendors at the Downtown Houma Market, who set up their tents before dawn every Saturday morning.
SPEED CONCERNS
Picou said speeders in downtown Houma raise a concern that must also be addressed, especially since the removal of a traffic signal at Main and Roussell streets. The signal had to be removed because the Department of Transportation and Development is using new traffic lights that can be monitored remotely. It is located further away than the lights were.
Picou hopes the new cameras on Main Street help solve traffic incidents along Main Street, and make the Bayouwalk fountains less susceptible to vandalism or theft.
James LeCompte, owner of the JL Salon on Goode Street, said reckless driving in the area is keeping some business owners from bringing their shops there.
“They’re not recognizing it as downtown,” he said.
Pat Gordon, director of the Terrebonne Parish Planning and Zoning Department, said he is working with a division of South Central Planning Commission to develop ways to slow or divert traffic.
Picou said city planners are also considering using “calming devices” like rumble strips – raised bumps or grooves – to encourage slower speeds.
Traffic and security are also issues for attorney Carolyn McNabb, who nonetheless is pleased with the changes Downtown Development has sponsored overall.
“We have to get the 18-wheelers off of Main Street as well,” McNabb said. “Next on my agenda for improving the downtown area would be to reduce the number of bars on downtown Main Street.”
Despite efforts at sprucing up downtown and adding amenities, some business owners say the hollow eyes of empty shop fronts that look out on the historic landscape are an eyesore, especially near Belanger Street.
“Beautification is always a good thing,” said David Sonnier, chef at the Milano restaurant on Belanger. “But they need to encourage more businesses to come downtown. I mean there are so many empty shops.”
The courthouse square is the centerpiece downtown. The Main Street Program will be adding more landscaping to the square using part of an extra $375,000 dollars collected from hotels in Terrebonne Parish.
