Good bet new venture finds new way to St. Martinville

ST. MARTINVILLE — Plans for an off-track betting facility to be placed in the former Wal-Mart building here are one step closer to becoming reality.

The St. Martinville City Council recently approved a resolution allowing Ma-yor Thomas Nelson to enter into a lease agreement with Evangeline Downs, which currently operates four other off-track betting facilities in Acadiana, including one in New Iberia.

Nelson is out of his office until Monday and could not be reached for comment.

City Councilman Craig Prosper said the lease has not been finalized. How-ever, he said, there is an agreement in place stating the company will locate at the building.

Wal-Mart closed its doors  on Oct. 31 in St. Mar-tinville, which resulted in a loss of more than $200,000 in sales tax revenues for the city. The city then inherited the 44,000-square foot building, about half of which will be occupied by the Evangeline Downs facility.

“In researching other cities, we found those buildings very hard to occupy with something that would give you a tax base or produce money for the city,” Prosper said.

Prosper does not know exactly how much the new facility will bring in for the city, but added it will replace anywhere from half to two-thirds of the revenue lost when Wal-Mart closed its doors. 

“We could sell the building for a certain amount of money, but it wouldn’t continue the yearly tax base,” Prosper said. “If you use the whole thing for office space or something like that, it doesn’t help us out at all.”

The issue has created a small pocket of opposition from church leaders and others in the community, and also from City Councilman Mike Fuselier, who has voted against any measure to bring gambling to the area, he said.

Fuselier said his re-search has shown gambling establishments bring in higher sales tax revenues by taking revenue from other area businesses.

Fuselier was the only councilman to vote against the proposal.

“The overall gain in our community is not positive,” Fuselier said. “I thought in our case we could have done a lot more retail searching. I just think it’s not in the best interest of the city and the community as a whole. When gambling comes in, it cannibalizes the economic surroundings, and I’ve never been a proponent of it.”