Kenner’s long-empty Esplanade Mall may finally be headed for the wrecking ball, if Councilwoman Arita Bohannan gets her way.
On Tuesday, Bohannan floated a parish-led plan for Jefferson Parish to buy the shuttered mall, tear down the interior, and then put the cleared site back on the market. Her proposal leans on Louisiana’s Fast Sites program and would leave only the two remaining anchors, Target and Dillard’s, standing.
How the Fast Sites pitch would work
According to WDSU, Bohannan said Jefferson Parish’s first application to the Fast Sites program was denied, and she now plans to reapply with some tweaks. She told the station the parish put together an 80-page application and that the Fast Sites approach would allow the parish to borrow state funds to buy the mall’s central “corpus,” demolish the interior, then sell the cleared land to repay the loan.
The site and its anchors
Property listings identify the Esplanade Mall site as 1401 W. Esplanade Ave. in Kenner, with public records outlining the anchor footprints and pad parcels that still remain. The pad anchors, Dillard’s and Target, sit on separate parcels and have stayed open even as the interior mall shut down, according to LoopNet.
Why redevelopment has stalled
Efforts to revive the property have repeatedly bogged down in a familiar mix of tangled title work, unpaid taxes, and fragmented ownership that makes assembling the full site a slog. As reported on March 31, 2025, by WDSU, Kenner leaders last year rejected a proposed resubdivision amid warnings that further slicing up the property could scare off major investors and leave existing tax and drainage headaches unresolved.
What’s next
Bohannan has said she will refile for the Fast Sites program, but any parish-led purchase will depend on clearing title issues and addressing tax and drainage concerns before a buyer is willing to sign on. Officials and meeting records point to discussion of a roughly $500,000 master-planning study and ongoing outreach to potential developers, while property listings indicate the site is still being marketed as those talks continue (Citizen Portal).
