St. James Parish
A Place for Business to Call Home
Located midway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, St. James Parish is known for rich, fertile soil that has made the area a top Louisiana producer of sugarcane and soybeans. Building upon its agricultural tradition, the parish has attracted investments from a wide variety of industries, including several major petrochemical, fertilizer, oil and gas, and sugar refinery companies that serve many of the world’s leading businesses and markets. The St. James Parish transportation infrastructure offers easy access not only to major highway and rail, but also to nearby Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and the Port of South Louisiana.
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Port of South Louisiana
The Port of South Louisiana is the premier sea gateway for U.S. export and import traffic, and the largest tonnage port in the Western Hemisphere. Part of St. James Parish, the Port of South Louisiana stretches 54 miles along the Mississippi River and is the largest tonnage port district in the Western Hemisphere. The Port of South Louisiana has five first-rate port-owned facilities, ranging from grain elevators to general cargo facilities, which it leases to operating companies such as Archer Daniels Midland and Plains All American. The port’s Globalplex Intermodal Terminal, purchased in 1992, is being redeveloped into a world-class complex to accommodate a variety of dry bulk and breakbulk cargo.
Formosa Chemical Corporation
Just downriver from the Sunshine Bridge resides Formosa Plastics, a company that produces ethylene, propylene, ethylene glycol, and associated polymers. As part of the St. James project for a $9.4 billion chemical manufacturing complex, Formosa purchased a 2,400-acre site along the west bank of the Mississippi River and named their project “The Sunshine Project.” The project was estimated to bring in 1,200 new direct jobs with salaries averaging $84,500, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development also estimated an additional 8,000 new indirect jobs, for a total of more than 9,000 jobs in the River Parishes and the surrounding regions.
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