Construction begins on $34M Mandeville Bypass in Louisiana to ease traffic, connect highways and improve access to Pelican Park. Road named temporarily, with residents set to vote on permanent name. Scheduled completion in 2 years.
St. Tammany Parish photo
Photo of the official groundbreaking for the new bypass.
Construction is under way on a long-anticipated bypass road in Mandeville, La., that St. Tammany Parish officials said will connect two state highways, improve access to the town's busy Pelican Park and ease traffic congestion in the area.
With a building cost of $34 million, the divided two-lane, 3.5-mi. road is for now simply called the "Mandeville Bypass" until residents choose a new name. When complete, it will link Louisiana Highway 1088 to U.S. Highway 190, with roundabouts at each intersection and ease traffic on La. 59, parish officials told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The plans also call for a multi-use path for bikers and pedestrians to run parallel to the bypass and connect to the Tammany Trace bike trail.
Parish officials said the roadway will be the most expensive ever built by the local government. The project is being built by Denley-Brown Contractors LLC in Baton Rouge.
"We have promised real roadway solutions to ease traffic and to boost safety and today, these promises have been delivered," said St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper at the project's rainy groundbreaking ceremony on April 7, 2025.
Approximately 3,500 vehicles are expected to use the road daily, he said. It is expected to be finished in two years, but the idea, which is decades old, has long been an ambition of many within St. Tammany Parish.
Long, Winding Road to Construction
Discussions about a north entrance to Pelican Park, a nearly 500-acre recreation destination between La. 1088 and U.S. 190, date back to the late 1990s, according to Nixon Adams, who has been involved with the park since its inception in the 1980s and serves as the chair of St. Tammany Parish Recreation District No. 1, the park's operator.
Its south entrance off U.S. 190 is "overwhelmingly crowded," Adams said during an interview with the Times-Picayune. With more than a million visitors a year, according to its website, the popular recreation site boasts 32 athletic fields, seven indoor basketball courts, a convention center, an 18-hole disc golf course and pickleball courts.
Eventually, the Mandeville Bypass will serve as the primary entrance and exit for the park, Cooper said.
"We're sure happy to see it coming," Adams said of the new road.
Engineering work on the bypass project started approximately 10 years ago, the New Orleans news outlet noted.
Much of the land was in private hands and had to be purchased, said St. Tammany Parish Council member Joe Impastato, who also was on hand for the proposed roadway's ceremonial building start.
In 2022, Cooper proposed setting aside $24.5 million to build the road; however, the Parish Council at the time did not take him up on it, instead opting to wait to see if the state would pay the costs.
Then, in February 2024, with no state money forthcoming, a newly elected Parish Council decided to push the project forward, setting aside revenue collected through a 2 percent sales tax in unincorporated St. Tammany (On March 29, 2025, residents voted against renewing the tax, which will now be collected only until 2031.)
The Mandeville City Council and Recreation District No. 1 also have contributed funding.
"This is adding to our toolbox, to our roads that we're going to maintain," said Mandeville City Council member Arthur Laughlin. He added the highway will be owned by the parish, not the state and highlighted the drainage improvements that will be included with the bypass in the form of ditches running alongside it.
"Mandeville Bypass" is only the temporary nickname for the roadway, according to Cooper. A permanent name will be decided by a vote on the parish's website where four proposed names will be listed: Adrien Rouquette Parkway, Brown Pelican Parkway, Buchawa Boulevard and Coyote Crossing.
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