Buc-ee’s Breaks Ground in Lafayette, Its Closest Store to Vermilion Parish, With a February 2028 Target

The $82 million travel center at I-10 and Louisiana Avenue will have 120 gas pumps, about 700 parking spaces and boudin on the menu. Lafayette’s economic development agency says it will support more than 300 jobs.

The beaver is finally on its way to Acadiana. Buc-ee’s held a groundbreaking Monday for a travel center on the north side of Lafayette, about 20 miles as the crow flies from Abbeville. When it opens, it will be the closest Buc-ee’s to Vermilion Parish by a long way.

The company is aiming to open in February 2028, weather permitting, Buc-ee’s founder and CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin III said at the ceremony, according to reports from Developing Lafayette, Acadiana News First and KTBS.

The store, by the numbers

Where: 3400 Louisiana Ave., at the northeast corner of Interstate 10 and Louisiana Avenue
Cost: $82 million
Building: more than 74,000 square feet
Gas: 120 fuel pumps
Parking: about 700 spaces
Land: roughly 42 acres

The site belonged to the late Charlie Castille, whose family held it for decades. A longtime family friend, James Alfred, told the crowd Castille had been laughed at for buying the land nearly 60 years ago and always meant for it to help the region, Acadiana News First reported.

Boudin next to the brisket

Expect the chain’s usual lineup of brisket, beef jerky and Beaver Nuggets. Aplin said the Lafayette store will also carry boudin for local customers. Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet promised “our own Cajun flair” inside.

Jobs

Mandi Mitchell, president and CEO of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, said the project should support more than 300 direct and indirect jobs and produce $257 million in personal income, in today’s dollars, over 25 years, Developing Lafayette reported. Aplin talked up the company’s pay, saying Buc-ee’s aims for jobs people can live on.

For Vermilion Parish workers, that is a short commute up U.S. 167. None of the reports from the groundbreaking gave a hiring date. The Times will report it when Buc-ee’s starts taking applications for Lafayette.

Why it took so long

Lafayette first talked with Buc-ee’s in 2014, and a second try in 2016 also stalled, Mitchell said. LEDA picked the effort back up in 2022, and it took close to three more years of work on zoning, road and utility changes, a special economic development district and an incentive package.

“We’ve been kind of fighting and banging our head against this for over a decade,” Aplin said, according to Developing Lafayette.

Gov. Jeff Landry, who attended, said he pressed the state Department of Transportation and Development to work with the company on interstate access. “When you look at the amount of jobs it creates, the wages that it pays, it’s in an unbelievable location,” he told Acadiana News First.

Crews have already started on the foundation and fuel tanks, Developing Lafayette reported.

Louisiana’s second

Lafayette is the Texas chain’s second Louisiana store. The first is under construction in Ruston, in north Louisiana.