"We recently announced three large industrial sites close to the Audubon bridge on the Mississippi River, with over 2,200 acres and six miles of Mississippi River and road frontage," said Les Cantrell, director of economic development for Pointe Coupee Parish. "Two of the sites are already Louisiana Economic Development shovel-ready-certified, and we are in the process of certifying the other."

The stretch from the Baton Rouge Wilkinson Bridge to the Gulf of Mexico is a large river corridor of industrial infrastructure, which the parish aims to extend up to the Audubon bridge, Cantrell said.

"Cajun Industries has an energy plant there, and instead of having to go all the way around the river using Highway 61 to transport materials, now [the firm] can go right across—that's 60 to 70 miles in savings," said Darrel W. Cole, Parsons Brinckerhoff assistant vice president. "Logging is also a huge industry there, and they were ecstatic to have this cut through. So, from that perspective—freight, delivery of goods and services, accessibility of businesses—everyone benefits."

Plans are already in place on the New Roads side for new stores to start popping up, particularly along the 12 miles of new approach roads that were constructed as part of the bridge project, Cole said.

"The bridge opening has created new interest in the region. Requests [for business information] probably quadrupled," Bowen said.

Project Team

Owner: Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development, Baton Rouge, La.

General Contractor: Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Constructors, Granite Construction and Parsons Transportation, all Benicia, Calif.

Program Manager: Louisiana TIMED Managers, Baton Rouge, La.

Lead Design: Audubon Bridge Constructors

Engineers: Parsons Corp., Buckland & Taylor, Evans-Graves Engineers, Burk-Kleinpeter and GO-TECH, all Baton Rouge, La.