UPDATE: The Metro Council on Wednesday chose to defer the cooperative endeavor agreement for Bayou Fountain Economic Development District. The council will take up the agreement at its Aug. 26 meeting. Several members of the Duplantier family attended the meeting but the council did not discuss the agreement.
BATON ROUGE — A family with deep Baton Rouge roots says a new economic development district that includes about 175 acres of their family land south of LSU, was created without their input, and they want out of it.
The Bayou Fountain Economic Development District envisions a set of athletic facilities and related businesses that could draw people to Baton Rouge from across the region for events like youth sports tournaments. Organizers say that it could eventually generate 450 jobs and $35 million a year in regional economic impact.
The Metro Council approved creation of the economic development district – or EDD – in April 2026. Council Member Jen Racca, whose council district covers the area, has been active in preparing the proposal.
Lisa Duplantier, one of the members of the family who owns more than half of the land within the EDD’s boundaries, said the family doesn’t oppose a sports complex in principle. But she and other family members felt blindsided when they learned about the proposal only days before that vote in April.
Surprise and confusion
Duplantier said Greg Stringfellow, who owns Elite Training Academy and who spearheaded the EDD that uses his training center as an anchor, spoke to another member of her family a day or two before the April vote. He mentioned it in passing during a discussion of whether the family was interested in selling the property.
“I wasn’t in that conversation, but it was very casually mentioned,” Duplantier told UWK. “And she was like, ‘Wait, what? What is this?’ And then she got on the phone and called, ‘Hey, does anybody know anything about it?’ It was like, what? Huh? What are you talking about?”
It was clear that the process of preparing the EDD had been going on for months, Duplantier said, but this was the first time the family heard anything about it.
The family gets offers from time to time to sell the property, which Duplantier described as “pretty much the last, best contiguous piece of land as close to LSU as you can get.”
But in addition to being aware of the land’s potential monetary value, family members feel strongly connected to the land the family has owned for more than a century.
A long history
“My great-grandfather purchased this land, this particular tract of land, in 1910. And it has been a farm. They raised horses and cattle and everything, but it’s an operating oil and gas field, and has been since the 1930s and we grew up there. I mean, generations have grown up there,” Duplantier said. “It means a lot to us, and we feel like we have been very good stewards of the land, and we have not done things to the land that would be detrimental to the area.”
The family’s history in this area goes back much further.
“Our family has been in the Baton Rouge area since right after the American Revolution,” she said. In addition to land in Pointe Coupee Parish, family members have owned property on Nicholson Drive, Highland Road and River Road over the years.
Request to Metro Council
Duplantier and her family have asked the Metro Council to remove their land from the EDD.
In a letter to council members last month, Duplantier and two other family members clearly said that they don’t want to be a part of Stringfellow’s project.
“We have no interest in doing business with Mr. Stringfellow or Elite Training Academy. That door is closed,” the letter said.
Remaining in the EDD could make the property less attractive to other buyers, should the family ever decide to sell, Duplantier said. For example, a retail store may be less interested in buying property there because they will have to collect higher sales tax than similar shops outside the EDD.
If the council won’t remove the land from the EDD, the family has asked that the council at least hold off on a cooperative endeavor agreement that’s scheduled for consideration at Wednesday’s council meeting. That agreement, among other things, triggers the transfer of sales tax revenue to the development district.
The family has also said it will take whatever legal steps are necessary to protect the property.
“Councilwoman Rocca said that the feasibility study that Greg Stringfellow had done said that this was the highest and best use of our land, and it is definitely not,” Duplantier said.
City-parish response
Racca and the mayor’s office both say the family’s dispute is with the developers and not with the government.
Racca characterized the family’s concerns as a dispute between a land seller and a land buyer. She said it is not relevant to the council’s actions.
Duplantier said it’s not a dispute between a buyer and a seller. Her family was not contacted about whether it was interested in selling the land until far too late in the process, she said, and the way they were treated left them unwilling to make a deal.
Racca disputes Duplantier’s contention that no one in the family was contacted about potential interest in selling the land well ahead of the council’s vote to create the district.
“I have some family members that said no offers were ever made to them. I know that not to be true, because Elite Sports and that entity said that they have made several offers that some family members have ignored, so I believe that some of the family members are not speaking to one another,” Racca said.
Stringfellow did not respond to a phone message from UWK left at the business on Tuesday.
Feasibility study
It is unclear how much progress the economic development district will be able to make without the Duplantier family land.
A feasibility study performed by Synergy Sports Global at Stringfellow’s request and dated October 31, 2025, listed “land acquisition costs” as a “con” in a list of pros and cons facing the development.
It recommended that Stringfellow make arrangements to buy the land “to show elected officials and City Staff their commitment to the project.”
The study indicated that a multi-sport complex could succeed in Baton Rouge, potentially increasing “sports tourism” in the area.
Racca said some businesses inside the EDD have been enthusiastic about that potential. Businesses that cater to LSU students, for example, struggle when students aren’t on campus. This kind of operation could help keep them afloat during those periods.
She also highlighted a feature of this EDD that makes it unique and particularly attractive to the city-parish.
The cooperative endeavor agreement covers a 25-year period. The first effect will be that, beginning in July, shoppers who patronize businesses in the EDD will pay an extra 2 percent sales tax. That’s typical of an EDD, and that money funds some of the development.
What’s different with the Bayou Fountain EDD is that money from that additional sales tax will, over time, stop going to the EDD and start going to city-parish coffers. At the start of the project, the money will go entirely to the EDD, but by the end, it will be entirely city-parish money.
Duplantier said family members have discussed their concerns with some members of the Metro Council and they have meetings scheduled Wednesday with Racca and others.
The council did delay voting on the cooperative endeavor agreement after several family members spoke at its May 27 meeting and asked for the delay.
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