ARNAUDVILLE, La (KLFY) – Tuesday night the St. Martin Parish Council approved an ordinance to abolish the St. Luke Hospital board and district.

For the last 5 years, St. Martin and St. Landry parish officials have been on a mission to revive the old Arnaudville building.

“That hospital has been closed for nearly 10 years and the building itself is starting to detoriate,” said St. Landry Parish President, Bill Fontenot.

Fontenot says the first step in the process of restoring the jointly-owned building involved both parishes approving an ordinance to abolish the hospital’s board and district.

“That opens up opportunities for the building to be used for other things other than what the law had required initially was to be used as a hospital,” explained Fontenot.

Fontenot says that same ordinance, which has officially been approved by both parish councils, also allows them to equal rights of the assets.

“The building, 2 or 3 acres with the building, and also money that remains in the accounts,” said Fontenot.

For a while, St. Landry Parish council members have been discussing turning the building into a French immersion center, but they have yet to vote on that.

“If there are other interest, we’ll actually entertain those interests as well,” said Fontenot, however, he says majority of the residents living in Arnaudville are all for the idea of a French immersion center.

“Did a survey in the region there and 90% of those surveyed, and that was almost 90% of the population, said ‘Yes! we need this kind of business here,'” said Fontenot.

Fontenot believes the center would be an added benefit for the region to attract even more tourists.

“Students come from all over the world to be immersed in French, right there in Arnaudville, they’re doing it now even without the use of the building,” said Fontenot.

Regardless of what the future holds for the building, Fontenot says it will be about two months before the council will make a final vote.