City of Kenner officials gathered at 200 Decatur Street on Thursday to break ground on the reconstruction of the Arthur P. Clay Community Center, a project years in the making that will bring a new civic hub and a health clinic back to South Kenner. The rebuilt facility is designed to serve as a resource for families and community residents in the surrounding neighborhood.
The groundbreaking, first reported by WGNO, marks the start of construction on a project the city awarded to Spartan Building Corporation in June for an amount not to exceed $3,875,000, according to City of Kenner records. The construction contract was approved under Sealed Bid 26-6965 and is being managed through the city's Department of Federal Program Compliance. The same records show the city separately capped its architectural contract with Verges Rome Architects, APAC at $451,495 following an $11,000 amendment approved that same month.
Funding for the rebuild included support from Jefferson Parish District 3 Councilman Byron Lee, per Kenner officials. Lee represents a district that stretches across portions of South Kenner and West Jefferson communities, spanning parts of both the East and West Banks, which the city notes makes parish-level funding significant for resources that cross jurisdictional lines.
A Federal Loan Helped Get the Project Moving
The path to Thursday's groundbreaking began in February 2025, when the Kenner City Council authorized a $2,080,445 application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Section 108 program, city records show. That program lets local governments convert Community Development Block Grant allocations into federally guaranteed loans for major community development projects, providing a primary funding stream for the reconstruction budget.
Months later, in July 2025, the city formally moved to replace the aging facility rather than repair it. Kenner officials approved a statement of qualifications soliciting architectural and engineering teams for a new building, passing Ordinance Summary No. 16-M to authorize a full replacement of the former Arthur P. Clay Resource Center.
InclusivCare Brings a Health Clinic to the Site
According to the city, the reconstructed center will operate in partnership with InclusivCare, a nonprofit that works to bring accessible and comprehensive healthcare services to Jefferson Parish residents. InclusivCare, operated by Jefferson Community Health Centers, Inc., has served the parish as a Federally Qualified Health Center since March 2006, after beginning as a Look-Alike health center before securing full FQHC status.
The nonprofit already runs a medical location in Kenner at 2552 Williams Boulevard, where it recently added dermatology services alongside its existing primary care, dental, and behavioral health offerings. InclusivCare also offers sliding-fee medical care and free transportation assistance for patients across the parish, building on an established footprint that the new Decatur Street partnership will extend into South Kenner.
A Site With Deep Roots in South Kenner
The Decatur Street property has a long civic history predating this reconstruction. Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Marc E. Johnson originally founded and developed the Arthur P. Clay Resource Center while representing District 1 on the Kenner City Council between 1994 and 2009, according to the Louisiana Judicial Council. During his nearly 16 years on the council, Johnson also established other civic hubs in South Kenner, including splash parks and gymnasiums.
The center has long served as a gathering point for the neighborhood. It hosted public health fairs offering mammograms and HIV screenings in 2008 and served as the starting point for Kenner's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in 2017, per the Targeted News Service. The city and Jefferson Parish also formalized a shared-use arrangement at the site in May 2015, when an intergovernmental lease agreement allowed parish programs to operate out of portions of the building alongside city services.
