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Woman's Hospital considers TND, big-box store for Briarwood site
Woman's Hospital is looking at several uses for 125 acres next to its new campus under construction on the site of the Briarwood Golf Course. Those options include building a traditional neighborhood development or a big-box retailer for its new location on Airline Highway at Pecue Lane. "They've made no commitments," says Steve Oubre, the Lafayette architect who has designed most of the TNDs under construction or in the planning stages in south Louisiana. Oubre and Robert Daigle, the Lafayette developer who did River Ranch TND, were hired by Woman's to look at the feasibility of putting a TND on the land and evaluating costs. "Everything that's being looked at is what would be best for the hospital," Oubre says. One of the issues that's also being looked at is the feasibility of a nonprofit hospital getting involved in developing housing. Because of these issues, Oubre says Woman's is a "long way" from determining what it will do with the land. Other options could be keeping a nine-hole golf course open or keeping the property as an undeveloped asset. Woman's broke ground last week on the $299 million medical complex scheduled to open in early 2011.—Timothy Boone