Metairie Shore was a planned community proposed for development along the shores of Metairie17th Street Canal and. The proposed development came up during Parish President Thomas Donelon's tenure in the mid-to-late '60's. The project aimed to remake the face of the Jefferson Parish lakefront with an ambitious land reclamation project by dredging Lake Pontchartrain. Planners also hoped to eventually extend the project to continue along the entire 10-mile Jefferson Parish lakefront and ultimately make up 6,000 acres of new land.
between the New Orleans parish line at the The proposed amenities of Metairie Shore ranged from a cultural center to an 18-hole championship golf course, 750 slip marina and over two miles of sand beaches. Additionally plans called for over 4,000 residential lots, shopping centers and office complexes. Projected costs to develop the first 2,500 acres of land came in at just under $78 million while revenues from land sales were projected to be just above $125 million. Planners hopped that the project would bring hurricane projection, economic development and allow citizens and visitors to fully realize the recreational potential of Lake Pontchartain.
Artificial beach adjacent to the Causeway.
Marina adjacent to the Seventeenth Street Canal along the Jefferson/Orleans border.
Three quarters of a mile west of where the Seventeenth Street Canal empties into Lake Ponctchartain, 750 boats will float at sheltered moorings.Flood protection plans included land fill to be thirteen feet above the water line along the lake. An artificial beach backed by a concrete seawall would protect against erosion.
East and west of the oval marina, miles of brilliant beaches will stretch along the lakefront. Behind bulwarking seawalls, a broad thoroughfare will skirt the banks of Pontchartain, forming one side of a rectangle of boulevards which encircle a city of 20,000.
From the present shoreline to one mile north into the lake - and from the Seventeenth Street Canal to three miles west - homes, apartments, hotels, churches, schools and small estates will reside on landscaped, shaded ground. At the midsection of Metairie Shore, a finger of water will reach from the marina to a mirror lagoon. And a quarter of a mile west 250 acres of public greensward will buffer Causeway Boulevard from handsome homes which surround an 18-hole golf course.
This is how Metairie Shore will appear when it is completed. It will be a community oriented to water sports, and its families will live in the comfortable atmosphere of a year-around resort. Its schools and churches, centralized within four separate neighborhoods, will be walking distance from every home.
Architecture will be diverse and interesting. Along Seventeenth Street Canal, family apartments unique to this area will put their inhabitants within a few steps of their boats. The units, known as Maison de L'eau (townhouses on the water), will rest on piers and include their own slips. From air condition apartment to boat to lake will be a matter of five minutes.
Immediately to the eat of the Marina will be a resort complex of hotels, motels, restaurants and convention facilities, which will draw outside wealth into the parish.
A cultural center - library, auditorium and theater among its units - will stand near the canal which links the marina to the lagoon, providing needed facilities both for the parish and for conventions. In selected, buffered areas, neighborhood shopping and professional centers will purvey essential goods and services to residents.
As proposed, Metairie Shore will be a complete community, self-contained and self-sustaining except for the major means of livelihoods, which some residents will earn outside the area.
The proposed Lakeshore Drive would connect to the New Orleans lakefront to form the longest 25 mile scenic street of its kind at the time. The hope was to have this street extend around the lake into other parishes in the future.
Housing Types
· Single family semi-detached homes (duplexes).
· Single family attached homes (townhouses).
· Multi-family garden apartments.
· Multi-family high rise apartments.
Categories inside of the housing types included waterfront lots, golf course lots, boulevard lots and boathouses (Maisons de L'eau).
Planners hoped to put everything that a citizen may need on a daily basis within walking distance. Multiple schools, playgrounds, shopping centers and churches would be nearby to the dwellings.
