Construction Underway for $20 million Nature Center & Park

If you haven’t heard much – if anything - about the Walter B. Jacobs Memorial Nature Park near Blanchard --- then you should relatively soon. Construction is now underway for a new state-of-the-art center and nature park. The 160-acre site contains a pine-oak-hickory forest accessible by five miles of nature trails, three miles west of Blanchard in north Caddo Parish. And this $20 million project will be worth every penny according to Caddo Parish Spokesperson Krystle Beauchamp. “It is really going to be worth the investment that the citizens have allowed us to invest because there are so many cool and exciting things that we can bring to this new center and have the capacity to do that, we did not have previously with our old facility. So, I really think it is going to be an amazing investment.”
The new 24,000 square foot facility will consist of an exhibit room, a 2,500 square foot bird aviary , classrooms, and an additional 8,000 square foot event space.’ to attract more visitors -- and to inspire innovation and creativity. Construction is expected to be completed by summer 2025. Caddo Parish voters approved the project back in the fall of 2022.