Ecton Lawrence "Ji" Billiot Jr.
July 7, 2008
Jaime Pineda
July 11, 2008
Two new hotels, situated about a mile apart on Grand Caillou Road, will open by the end of 2008, owners and contractors said.
The construction is part a wave of new hotel development in the Tri-parish area.
“We build almost exclusively hotel construction, and Houma and the surrounding area is just booming right now,” said Jimmy Goodson of Frank Culotta Contractors, a Baton Rouge-based general contracting firm. “North Louisiana is dead for this kind of work.”
Goodson is overseeing the 77-room Baymount Inn and Suites Hotel being built on Grand Caillou Road, which is scheduled to open July 18.
Culotta has built other hotels in west Houma. Last year, the company completed a Micro Inn & Suites on Martin Luther King Boulevard and will soon begin work on a 70-room Wingate by Wyndham Hotel just down the street.
“They cleared the site, but they’re still working out some of the paperwork,” Goodson said about the Wingate property. “This week, we’re suppose to get serious on the site work over there.”
Down the road, Joe O’Connor is erecting his second hotel in as many years.
The owner of B&N Management Company is building an 83-room MainStay Suites extended stay hotel next to his 73-room Comfort Inn hotel, which opened last year.
“We felt it was pretty good area to develop since the east [side] hasn’t been developed yet,” said O’Connor. “The hotel is primarily for the businesses on that side of Houma.”
The MainStay Suites is designed for business travelers who stay more than couple of days.
All the suites will have fully-equipped kitchens, Internet access, and 32-inch plasma televisions, according to Brett Simon, owner of Hi-Tech Commercial Contractors, the general contractor for the hotel project.
The facility will not include a swimming pool, but it will have a smokers’ barbeque area and a small gazebo.
According to O’Connor, out-of-town business travelers with dealings primarily on Houma’s eastside still had to book hotel rooms in West Houma, forcing them to fight traffic flow both ways.
“The eastside was kind of neglected in not having any hotels in that area,” O’Connor said. “So we decided to build there based on the location. It’s near the airport, the heliport and the hospital (Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center).”
After the Dec. 10 opening of the MainStay, O’Connor said work will begin on a restaurant, which will be built between his two hotels.
“We’re always looking for opportunities,” he said. “That’s what our company is about – rebuilding and restoring Louisiana.”
Work continues on the MainStay Suites on Houma’s east side. It is the second hotel going up on Grand Caillou Road. The extended-stay hotel will offer 83 rooms, according to owner Joe O’Connor. * Photo by KEYON JEFF
