Officials gathered Thursday to mark the ceremonial opening of a new Love’s Travel Stop at Interstate 12 and La. 1088 near Mandeville, the first business up and running at a massive industrial park that parish officials and developers hope will attract new warehouses and distribution centers to the I-12 corridor through St. Tammany Parish.
The ribbon-cutting at the 15,228-square-foot truck stop at the Gulf South Commerce Park drew a crowd of elected officials, business leaders, and students from the Lakeshore High School, who played the national anthem and led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The opening of the Love’s truck stop is the most visible sign yet of construction — land clearing and prep work mostly — at the site, which was the subject of an intense zoning battle in 2022 as business supporters pushed the St. Tammany Parish Council to approve the zoning to help pave the way for a logistics and manufacturing corridor and opponents told the council the development of huge business parks would destroy the rural nature of the parish and cause environmental problems…