St. Landry Parish has sights on turning former country club into sports complex

OPELOUSAS, La. ( KLFY ) — St. Landry Parish President Jessie Bellard is laying out his plan for the parish to purchase the former Indian Hills Country Club to transform it into a new athletics complex.

The country club has stood in Opelousas for decades. However, after the country club closed, it was taken over by Opelousas Life Church. The building is up for grabs again.

“Opelousas Life Church came up for sale. The pastor agreed to sell it to us for $1.5 million. $1 million is coming from the state appropriations. The $500,000 is going to come from an outside source. It’s not going to be taxpayer money,” Bellard said.

With issues the facility has seen, including difficulty with maintaining the landscape, Bellard sees some major benefits to purchasing the property for both aesthetics and economic growth.

“Our hopes and dreams is to make this the state-of-the-art facility so we can bring in tournament teams and just be a good driver for economic development,” Bellard said.

“Every time you have these tournaments all over the state, they fill up hotels every weekend and it gives these kids a place to go and get them off the streets,” he continued.

While the purchase is not a done deal just yet, Bellard is already trying to form a game plan for when the decision is made.

“It’s 104 acres. Grass needs to be covered. So, what our hopes are is to take it from where it’s at right now, clean it up, and then sit down with the neighborhood and come up with a master plan on how it should look and what it’s going to look like and hoping that everybody agrees,” Bellard said.

Before the purchase can be done, Bellard said there is an extensive vetting and appraisal process. If the purchase is made, residents will have the chance to voice their opinions on the future of the property before anything gets built.

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