The apartment complex's last vestiges, its concrete slabs, are being removed to make way for green space
From its pre-Hurricane Katrina incarnation as a hotbed for crime to its post-storm breeding ground for rot and mildew, Village Square has been the ire of Chalmette, and now St. Bernard Parish officials are putting it out to pasture.
Its last vestiges, its concrete slabs, are being removed to make way for green space and a possible festival grounds. The parish acquired the Village Square land, demolished the buildings and is now removing slabs with about $24 million in Hazard Mitigation grants from a batch of FEMA aid doled out by Congress in mid-2006.
Once a cluster of more than 150 multifamily units in the heart of Chalmette, the Village Square apartments just off Judge Perez Drive were swallowed when Katrina's storm surge made quick work of the area's levees. What was left of Village Square's abandoned and crumbling buildings became an eyesore and a source of frustration for parish residents and officials.
Last summer, the area was the setting for a post-apocalyptic reality TV show, "The Colony," that used the then-moldering, ungutted apartments choked by weeds and tall grass to simulate a world after cataclysmic disease had wiped out most of the Earth.
For years after Katrina, St. Bernard Parish government officials and parish council members explored options to redevelop the 37-acre Village Square tract, but ultimately decided to use the federal dollars to buy the apartments and return the area to open space.
"The Village Square slab removal program is the last phase of the clean-up effort for this area and sets up the opportunity to continue the revitalization of the Chalmette Towne Centre," parish President Craig Taffaro said.
Village Square is often cited in parish residents' opposition to four multifamily apartment units currently under construction in Chalmette. Residents express fears that similar blight and crime could develop that would lower property values in the surrounding area.
Commercial and residential development will be prohibited at the federally financed green space for 99 years, but it can be used as an open-air festival grounds, a move Taffaro is pursuing. He said the parish has matched an $18,000 National Endowment Association grant to explore staging festivals and parades on the site.
Slab removal is scheduled for completion by year's end. In the first phase, Cross Environmental Services is removing more than 30,000 square yards of concrete. The final phase, currently out for bid, involves tearing up another 100,000 square yards.
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Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.