Town South History
In the summer of 1967, the local publication, Shreveport Magazine, devoted an entire edition to what was known as the “New Town” concept in suburban neighborhood planning. Developer Beal Locke, vice-president of T&H Homes, along with Lonnie C. Aulds, president of the Caddo Parish Police Jury, Shreveport Mayor Clyde E. Fant, and T&H President J. Verne Hawn had recently announced the imminent building of a new subdivision in southeast Shreveport based on this concept.
Town South Estates was originally planned as the first edition of the land development plan but the second edition and the commercial development did not develop as originally envisioned. The first homes were built in the neighborhood were the model homes located on south side of North Wickford Circle built in 1967. (Click here to view the original plat map and how the area looks today.)
The following is the text of the feature article from the July 1967 issue of Shreveport Magazine:
TOWN SOUTH: The ‘New Town’ Concept
New community just south of LSU-Shreveport will be largest planned-unit sub-division ever opened in the Shreveport area, including greenway parks, two swim clubs and a Homes Association for the benefit of its residents
by Orlando Dodson
“You have to see this to believe it,” said Mr. Locke. “It’s a beautiful concept that’s been working perfectly for years and years.”
It was from Mr. Locke’s announcement of Town South that many Shreveporters first heard of the “homes association” concept.
Homeowners in Town South Estates will be members in an exclusive Homes Association. With each lot goes a share of stock in the private non-profit Louisiana corporation for the exclusive and sole benefit of the residents of Town South. The association will own the 7.5 acre ‘Greenbelt’ park which winds through the residential lots.
“The park is for the sole and exclusive use of Town South homeowners and their families. It will be maintained by the association through the collection of a very nominal monthly fee. Homeowners will elect from among themselves a board of directors which will serve with representatives of the developers of Town South in order to assure the orderly development of this first completely planned community in Shreveport.
“When the Town South community is nearly completed, the developers will have no further voice in the operation of the Homes Association. No part of the monies of the association can ever accrue to the benefit of any one individual. Rather the Town South Homes Association will be for the benefit of the residents of Town South.
“Every deed conveyed in Town South will contain the restrictive covenants which will include the required membership in the Homes Association and which will help maintain high property values for every family.”
“You’re dedicating the ‘greenbelt’ area, then, to the Homes Association?”
“Yes. From the very beginning. And we’re not just dedicating the area. It’s being provided with trees- full-grown trees- and there will be parkways along which children can walk, or ride their bikes, to visit other children in the neighborhood- or go to the swimming club areas- without ever going into the street to encounter traffic dangers.”
Town South Estates in final form will cover more than 300 acres of land about six miles south of downtown Shreveport. It flanks the section of Highway One now being four-laned by the Louisiana Highway Department, south and southwest of the South Broadmoor subdivision. The first unit consists of 35 acres within the Shreveport city limits. It includes
106 lots, of which 54 had been sold to six well-known Shreveport builders at the time the announcement was made in mid-March.
“A majority of the homesites in Town South Estates are located on cul-de-sac streets which end in a turnaround, and many homesites join the greenway parks at the rear of the lots,” Mr. Locke said proudly. “Phillips, Proctor, Bowers & Associates of Dallas served as land planners – and W. R. Smolkin & Associates of New Orleans served as market consultants. George Wilkes of Shreveport is the landscape architect.
“In each of the greenway parks – one east and one west of Highway One, there will be located swim clubs to be built and operated by Town South Swim Club, Inc., which is now being formed. The greenway park on the west side also will extend along two sides of the 15.4-acre elementary school site purchased recently by the Caddo Parish School Board.
“A majority of the children living in the area will be able to walk to the swim club or to the elementary school without crossing a street, by the walkways in the greenway park.”
The development of Town South Estates is planned in three major phases. The first includes 106 original homesites, the swim club, the greenway park, the school site and the Nativity Lutheran Church, which has purchased a three acre site on the northern edge of the first unit. The second phase will be additional development of 166 homes in the area on the west side of Highway One, and the start of construction of apartments on the east side of the highway.
“The third phase will be construction of townhouses on the west side of the highway, additional apartments, and commercial development of the first three acres of neighborhood shopping facilities on the east s ide of the highway – and a motel and restaurant on the west side of the highway at the southern edge of Town South Estates.”
Eventually there are to be 351 additional homesites, a second greenway park, and a second swim club on the east end of the development.
“All in all,” said Mr. Locke, “the plan calls for 623 homes at an average cost of $25,000 each – the range is from $22,000 to $40,000 – 700 apartment units at an average cost of $15,000 each, and commercial, school, and church development estimated at $5,000,000. The total value of the completed development will be over $30,000,000.”
“Then you see this,” I asked, “as a sort of a complete small city in which the homeowners will govern themselves?”
“Yes. Except that Town South Estates will be in the Shreveport city limits, which will entitle the owners to municipal water and sewerage service, free trash pickup and garbage disposal. They will have nearby shopping centers, the swim clubs, and the parkways over which they will have a say.
“To see how this concept works, you must see the Country Club District in Kansas City.”
Shreveport’s Town South Estates brings together in a unique way some of the best features of three concepts—the planned unit development idea preserving open space for the common enjoyment of all homeowners, the Homes Association to maintain that amenity in perpetuity, and (although it will be entirely within the limits of a well-established city) the pioneering aspect of the “New Town” since it is located almost center of significant employment.
“The opening of LSU-Shreveport this Fall is a factor, but not the only factor by any means, in the decision of T & H Inc., to bring this development to Shreveport at this time,” says Mr. Locke.
“This is the type of development we have dreamed of for Shreveport over a period of many years. Along with the profit motive, we take a certain amount of pride in being able to bring about a development that will endure, whose value will survive short-term market fluctuations.
“We feel that our previous developments, Cherokee Park, Highland Park and Spring Lake Estates, have been successful in this regard. And we believe Town South Estates will be a project which will endure.
“Of course it goes without saying that the economic outlook in Shreveport at the moment, bright as it is, could scarcely be better for the launching of such a project. Everybody agrees that Shreveport is on the verge of significant new growth. And of course we want to be part of that.”
“Were there any special problems in bringing these concepts-new as they are to the local community-into forms acceptable to Shreveport’s zoning regulations?”
“Well,” said ·Mr. Locke, “of course there were problems. There are problems in any subdivision development. But we are very fortunate in Shreveport to have forward-looking public official s. Without the cooperation of the Mayor and the City Commissioners, the Caddo Parish Police Jury, the Planning Commission and the School Board, we might have found some of the problems insurmountable. And this goes, too, for the local officials of the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration.
All have been most helpful.
“For example, one of the finest things about this development is that a considerable number of the children of elementary age whose families live in Town South Estates will be able to walk along the parkway trails to the elementary school site, which the School Board has already purchased. So this is a definite advantage, not just a possibility which we might mention in a presentation to a potential home-buyer.”
Town South Estates is located only about four blocks from LSU-Shreveport’s campus, and the elementary school site is within the subdivision boundaries. And the new Captain Shreve High School, which also opens this Fall, is nearby. It is indicative of the purpose of Town South Estates that the first of the two swimming pools Town South Estates will include in final form is being opened this Summer-even though the first eight model homes in the first unit will not be open until September- and that before the membership sales campaign opened in June (the club will admit 200 nonresident members and 300 Town South Estates resident-members), almost one fourth of the non-resident positions had been applied for. And 65 per cent of the lots in Unit 1 were already sold to builders.
“We are aiming at a ‘total environment’ concept which has not been seen locally,” said Mr. Locke, “and the acceptance is proof that we’re on the right track. The day of the stereotyped tract home, we believe, is past. Our standard of living has advanced, and the homebuyer is no longer content with just having a crisp new house in a new neighborhood. He wants a custom-built home, and amenities to make it a pleasant neighborhood from every standpoint.
“We are pleased that in Town South Estates we are able to offer a full-sized residential lot, 70 feet by 120 feet, and still provide the special amenity of the greenway park. Land is still inexpensive enough to permit us to do this, and keep the prices competitive.
“And thus we are able to provide in Town South Estates not only what we consider the best features of the Homes Association idea, the planned unit development concept, and the New Town approach, but a full-sized lot for each home in a city whose progress is assured.”