SCOTT, LA (The Daily Advertiser) — The city of Scott is moving forward in making its city limits more accessible from Interstate 10 all the way to the south side of the parish.

As the fourth-largest municipality in Lafayette Parish, Scott is “ripe” for new residential and commercial growth, city planner Pat Logan said.

“Our location definitely helps,” Scott Mayor Purvis Morrison said.  “We’re right off of I-10 and basically 3 miles from I-49, which helps us also. So we are benefiting from our location and definitely from the administration and the council’s aggressiveness in putting in infrastructure as we try to grow the community.”

The city’s most important endeavor right now is extending Apollo Road to Rue de Belier, Morrison said.

Last week, the Scott City Council awarded the first phase of the project, costing $1.6 million for water and sewage, to Expert Maintenance Services LLC.

The 2-mile extension will parallel Ambassador Caffery Parkway and provide access directly to destinations like the Acadiana Mall, Morrison said.

The project has been several years in the making. In its early planning stages, the city’s council approved creating a tax increment financing, or TIF, district to generate additional revenue from new business expected to move into the area.

“That’s going to open up a lot of commerce to this community,” the mayor said. “And it’s going to tie us basically almost directly to the southern part of Lafayette.”

The next phase of the extension is expected to be bid out later this year. The overall project, which will cost about $20 million, should be completed in 2019, Logan said. The city of Scott has already purchased all the right-of-ways for the extension, he said.

Even before breaking ground, the extension is already attracting new development. Commercial real estate broker Randy Loller said the Lafayette Parish Library system has purchased six acres along Apollo Road at $70,000 an acre. Most of the available property in that area is listed between $70,000 to $80,000 per acre.

He said several land owners are still holding on to property that will eventually flank the new Apollo Road extension.

“I think a lot of land owners are holding off until the road is built,” Loller said. “The economy isn’t great right now, and they know they can eventually get a lot more. I think they are just waiting until the time is right.”

Scott is already home to major industrial companies, including National Oilwell Farco and Louisiana Plating & Coatings. It’s now trying to attract new retail, particularly to a 41-acre tract along I-10.

On Thursday, a groundbreaking was held at the intersection of I-10 and Louisiana Highway 93 for a new Super 1 grocery store. The store will anchor the 41-acre site, which will be home to several other new retailers, Morrison said.

“We’ve heard from the owners that people have been contacting them about retail spots,” he said. “We are waiting to see what transpires from that.”

But with a population that is still less than 10,000, Scott remains a small community that relies on its local businesses, many of which make the city a travel destination for tourists, Kelly Sonnier, vice president of the Scott Business Association said.

Scott is, after all, the Boudin Capital of the World.

“We have a lot of homegrown mom and pop shops here,” Sonnier said. “And that’s a big focus of the Scott Business Association so we can network with big corporations like Super 1. People come from all the country for specialty meats and specialty seasons.”

The downside is new, bigger businesses moving in mean more competition for the little guys, she said.

“It’s a flip of both coins,” Sonnier said. “Even if they go to the bigger stores, I’d rather see the tax revenues be spent by people in Scott even if it is a corporation rather than being spent in another municipality getting the tax revenue.”