Investors break ground on multimillion dollar industrial business park in Ascension Parish

GEISMAR, La. (Louisiana First) – In Ascension Parish, a new multimillion-dollar industrial office park is supposed to create space for multiple big businesses in the area.

Excitement is in the air in Geismar as investors are kicking off a new project, years in the making.

Gregg Thompson with Ratcliff Development is spearheading the new project, called Magnolia Ridge Logistics Park.

“Our goal here is to develop a first-class, light industrial business park,” said Thompson. “The demand for industrial space in this market is undeniable. Ascension Parish is the star of Louisiana, with over $50 billion worth of capital projects announced recently, and for all you here, this is nothing new.”

He said just the infrastructure and land, the first portion of the project, has a $25 million price tag. Thompson said more than 50 investors, mostly from our area, are helping to bring it all to completion.

“These projects announced, like the Hyundai plant, the CF Industries expansion, all of these were announced in the last six months,” said Trey Williams with JRE Private Capital. “But Ratcliff and Greg have been working on this project for three years. It takes a lot of guts, a lot of intuition, and it takes a lot of institutional knowledge, combined with local intuition to get something like this off the ground.”

State Representative Peter Egan of District 74 is investing in the project.  He says, “It fits into what I am doing at the state level, which is promoting Louisiana right now, as competing with all of the neighboring states, for fine, strong, money-generating economic projects,” said

Thompson said the park will focus on the distribution of industrial manufacturing, which is much needed.

Things like office warehouses and transportation fleets with a fenced, secure place to store equipment will be housed here.

The park will have space for fourteen businesses by 2026. Each lot will be up to 25 acres. It’s going up just off Highway 30, close to the Tanger outlet mall.

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