Lake Charles Business, Mayor Push for Bridge Access Fixes Before Aug. 4 Deadline

LAKE CHARLES, La. — Layton Alvo has spent two years directing traffic outside Steamboat Bills on the I-10 service road, work he calls his livelihood. That job’s future is now tied to the Calcasieu River Bridge project and the access changes coming to the south side lakefront.

“This all made my living right here,” Alvo said. He’s one of 50 Steamboat Bills employees whose jobs depend on how the project handles that access.

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A 40-Year Business Facing Relocation

Kathy Vidrine opened Steamboat Bills in 1984, selling food from a peddling truck along the lakefront. Four decades later, the restaurant sits in the bridge project’s path and will have to move. Vidrine hasn’t been formally approached about a relocation site, but she’s reviewed the latest renderings for the south side service roads and off-ramps, and the plans concerned her.

“If I go across the street, from what I understand, it’s not going to be an easy thing to get over there like it is on this side of the road,” Vidrine said.

She said the planned roads and ramps could make it harder for drivers to reach lakefront businesses, an effect she believes would spread across the entire downtown corridor, including a sports complex planned nearby.

“Harder to get to, much harder,” Vidrine said. “Now a big sports complex is going to be going in downtown or supposed to go in. All of that’s going to be impacted.”

Vidrine singled out the proposed roundabout at the Lakeshore Drive exit as a specific concern. A missed turn there, she said, would send drivers back over the bridge and require them to pay the toll a second time.

“If they put the roundabout and you miss that roundabout, you’re over the bridge,” Vidrine said. “You can’t come back.”

Her request to the project team is straightforward: make the exit and entrance easy enough that travelers actually stop in Lake Charles.

Mayor Calls the Lakefront Land the City’s “Front Porch”

Lake Charles Mayor Marshall Simien shares Vidrine’s concerns, and said the stakes go beyond a single business. The Lakeshore Drive exit will be the only way for I-10 traffic to reach downtown once the new bridge configuration is in place.

“This is the only exit that you have into the downtown area off the new I-10 bridge configuration,” Simien said. “That’s how anybody coming down I-10 is going to interact with the first part of our city. So it’s a very important exit.”

Simien sees the land that opens up once the existing interstate is torn down as a rare development opportunity, land he’s calling the city’s front porch. He envisions a lakefront village with two-way roads, traffic circles, shops, restaurants, condos and hotels facing the beach, and said the city has already offered Steamboat Bills a spot on the south side lakefront.

“We have a place for them,” Simien said. “We really want them to be there.”

Simien raised similar concerns about the lakefront rendering at a public meeting on the project in late July, when bridge officials said the south side exits and the Lakeshore Drive corridor were still open for input.

What Happens During Construction Remains Unclear

One question the project hasn’t answered is what access to the south side lakefront will look like during construction, before new off-ramps are built. Vidrine said that gap is part of why she hasn’t committed to a relocation site.

Simien said city officials have raised the issue directly with the state and the bridge builders.

“We’ve talked extensively with DOTD and the bridge builders about that,” Simien said. “They’re going to make sure that that’s not an impediment.”

Construction is already underway on the north side of the bridge. The exit ramp design for the south side has not been finalized, and completion is projected for the early 2030s.

How to Submit a Public Comment

The public comment period on the bridge design closes Tuesday, Aug. 4. Residents can submit comments through the project’s website.

For Alvo, the outcome remains uncertain. He said he’s taking the project one day at a time.

“I wish for the best,” he said.

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