There is a lot of progress happening in Lake Charles with several projects taking shape and others nearing completion. Mayor Nic Hunter told members of the Kiwanis of Lake Charles Tuesday afternoon that he is focused on keeping that momentum going and looking forward to an even brighter future for the city.

Infrastructure

A frigid winter in 2021 that swept across the area mid-February caused widespread power outages and depleted the city’s water reserves while leaving a blanket of ice across Lake Charles.

“It was a very stressful time for this community, it was a very stressful time for me, and there were some moments during that freeze that were more frustrating than even the hurricanes because we lost water pressure for five days and we were scrounging around trying to figure out how we could adjust the system, what we could do different to get water pressure back up.”

Just seven months-post Hurricane Laura when the freeze occurred, the area remained in the midst of recovery with several buildings — both residential and business — still empty.

“In the aftermath of the storms, there were a lot of private water lines that bust and we had no clue the lines had burst,” he said. “The only way we could find those broken lines were literally city employees and employees from Lafayette scouring the streets looking with a naked eye trying to see where water was bubbling up from the ground.”

Another problem? The city had a water system that was antiquated.

“What we have now in this entire city is all new water meters to where one employee sitting in a room can look at a screen and see every address in the city that has a water leak because we went to a smart meter system,” he said. “These meters will indicate when there is a leak at the house. We went from 70-year technology to 2025 technology across our whole city.”

He said when the snow storm hit the area last month, the city did not receive any reductions in water pressure and no boil advisories were issued.

“It was such a gratifying thing because I had other cities calling us and saying, ‘Hey, how did you do that? What did you do to your system in four years to have that turnaround?’ That is significant.”

Drainage

Hunter said many of the infrastructure investments the city has made cannot be seen so it’s easy to forget about them — especially concerning drainage.

“When I came into office, I would say that we were at an acute emergency 911 situation when it came to drainage. It’s one of those situations where even predecessors didn’t realize how bad it was because you had to go underground to see it.”

In 2017, the city launched a citywide drainage improvement program with “boots on the ground” in 2018. By 2021, after the double-punch of Hurricanes Delta and Laura, that program “went on steroids,” Hunter said.

“With the council’s support, the city gained authority to borrow $20 million and that program today is 90 percent finished throughout the whole city. What we have done is we have investigated every inch of underground drainage throughout the city of Lake Charles, we’ve (inspected it), we’ve noted where there are rinks in the line, where other infrastructure improvements need to be made and we’ve cleaned out all of those lines,” he said.

The city also went into a 50-50 partnership with the state to pay for drainage improvements on state routes such as Country Club Road, Ryan Street and Nelson Road.

Housing

Within four months, the city will have more housing units — both rental housing and single-family homes — than it had prior to Hurricane Laura.

“Inside the city of Lake Charles there have been 750 single-family homes that have been either completely rebuilt or completely remodeled after the hurricanes through the Restore program,” Hunter said. “Those 750 homes equates to $40-$50 million in investments. When you include the additional rental investments, it’s over $100 million.”

All of these housing units were built with the Fortified Home gold standard — which means they will be able to withstand another Hurricane Laura-type of event.

“The city of Lake Charles is the most resilient city in the state from a housing perspective,” he said. “I’m very confident in that statement because no other city went through what we went through in 2020-2021 and had those immediate investments in housing like we had.”

Some of the rental housing coming to Lake Charles are the Mid-City Lofts, a mixed-income development designed with a community space, fitness center and computer room located at the southeastern corner of 18th and Lake streets, and the Woodring Apartment complex, which features off-street parking, community center, fitness center, grilling and picnic area, rain garden, and a pocket park at the corner of Division and Hodges streets.

Economic development

After the storms, the city set up economic development districts as a way to spur economic growth along both the lakefront and on Enterprise Boulevard along the Interstate 10 corridor.

About $15 million has been invested on Enterprise Boulevard — including an Acadian Ambulance EMS Academy and the Nellie Lutcher Pocket Park.

Along the lakefront, Port Wonder and Crying Eagle are nearing completion and the “spooky, abandoned-looking parking garage that was the welcome sign to this community for the past 17 years has been renovated.”

The newly refurbished Lakefront Alligator Pond has also reopened with 800 visitors signing waivers last weekend so that their children could hold baby alligators during a Partners in Parks event.

“I’m excited about what’s happening on the lakefront and I hope what people see is that it’s a new day and we have actually got activity happening there,” he said. “When our lakefront is thriving, that’s good for the whole city, it’s good for downtown and it’s good for other areas to see this investment because it’s people’s first impression of this community when they drive over the I-10 bridge. They see something so much better today than they saw seven years ago.”

He said the lakefront hotel and new amphitheater will also “be a game-changer” for downtown Lake Charles. He said the Lake Charles Event Center “will never reach its full capacity, will never reach its full ability without a hotel.”

Private money is funding the hotel and the city will continue to own the land it’s on.

Hunter said the $1 billion the city received in grant money and federal funding after the hurricanes wasn’t by accident and didn’t happen easily.

“It was a team that made it happen, and I was a big part of that team,” said Hunter, who is seeking his third term. “I worked really hard to get that money and I’d really like to be here to see it get spent.”