"I miss the old Boardwalk." A visitor said that to a KTBS reporter earlier this month, standing near the empty storefronts that have defined the Louisiana Boardwalk for most of the last five years. It's a fair thing to feel. Anyone who has walked that stretch along the Red River in the last few years knows the drill: a handful of open shops, a security guard doing laps, maybe a family or two heading into the movie theater. TripAdvisor reviews from recent visits describe it bluntly as a ghost town.
But something has changed at the Boardwalk in 2026, and it did not happen because a developer drew up a master plan and leased out the empty units one by one. It happened because four completely separate parties, with no coordination between them, all landed on the same 500,000-square-foot property within a few months of each other. A pickleball franchise. A Shreveport chef with a passion project. An arts nonprofit that got evicted from its home of 45 years. And, as of July 1, the city of Bossier City itself, which chose the Boardwalk as the literal stage for its own rebrand.
None of them are selling merchandise. That's the part worth sitting with if you live here and remember when this place was built as an outlet mall.
The Pickleball Complex Nobody Expected to Work
The Picklr held a soft opening for founding members on January 31, 2026, taking over Building H at the Boardwalk. Five months later, the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate reported that the location had already topped 400 members and was singled out by Picklr's corporate leadership for the highest member retention rate in the entire country. Co-founder Chris Phillips told the paper the club has grown steadily every month without losing a single member, crediting what he called the programming and the communal aspects of the space.
That word, communal, is doing a lot of work. Phillips is now coordinating with Bossier schools to build a high school league and a junior program to fill the 11 courts during off-peak hours. This isn't a gym membership. It's a standing appointment with the same group of people, week after week, in a building that used to sell sneakers.
A Chef's Restaurant, and His Side Project
Chef Gabriel Balderas already runs two well-regarded restaurants across the river in Shreveport, Zuzul Coastal Cuisine and El Cabo Verde. His third, called The Brine, is going into Building M at the Boardwalk, in the space that used to be a Nike store, right next to The Picklr in Building H. The name is a deliberate nod to his new pickleball neighbor. Balderas filed his letter of intent with the Bossier Metropolitan Planning Commission back in January, and by early August, KTBS reported the restaurant could welcome its first customers within about three weeks, pending final city inspections. That puts a realistic opening window in late August.
"I feel like it's exciting. We're excited to do something different."
That's Balderas, describing what he's building. But the more interesting story is what he's doing on the side, for free, with no obvious business case attached. Balderas has spent months restoring the Boardwalk's original Louisiana Wildlife Carousel, a fixture custom-built in 2005 with fiberglass horses alongside Louisiana-themed figures like alligators and crawfish. He's pulled the city permits himself, worked directly with inspectors, and researched the carousel's history, admitting to a local radio outlet that he's learning the restoration process as he goes. The goal is to have it spinning again by the end of summer, timed to coincide with The Brine's opening. A local chef with two successful restaurants already running does not need a third business venture. He needed the carousel running again, and he made it his problem to solve.
The Arts Council Didn't Choose the Boardwalk. It Landed There.
The Bossier Arts Council spent 45 years in a historic municipal building in the East Bank District, a former courthouse and city jail. That ended abruptly this spring. The Bossier City Council voted to cut ties with the organization over missing audit reports, and in April the BAC was given about a week to vacate, without a new location lined up.
By early May, the council had moved into the former Express clothing store at 355 Boardwalk Blvd, and what started as a temporary landing spot was already being described as the organization's new permanent home within weeks. New executive director Amber Dawn Landrum told a local station the location was chosen specifically because it already had art galleries and a movie theater nearby, and because it was walkable. That walkability paid off fast. The council reported more than 200 visitors on July 4 alone, many of whom had never heard of the BAC before stumbling onto the new gallery. Its Sidewalk Saturdays art sales now happen right outside the new Boardwalk storefront. The organization's biggest annual fundraiser, ARTini, moves to the new location on October 3, 2026, with a Whimsical Wonderland theme.
Nobody courted the Arts Council to the Boardwalk. They were pushed out of one building and pulled toward the other because it already had foot traffic. That's a different kind of vote of confidence than a developer's marketing plan.
The City Picked the Same Spot for Its Own Announcement
On July 1, 2026, Bossier City unveiled its first rebrand in decades, a new logo and tagline, "A City on the Move," backed by a $100,000 contract and nearly a year of research. City leaders could have held that announcement anywhere. They held it at The Event Center at the Boardwalk, with Mayor Tommy Chandler and Council President Chris Smith speaking a few hundred feet from where the carousel restoration and The Brine's build-out were both underway.
KTBS connected the two stories directly, reporting that the new slogan is meant to position Bossier City as a destination for residents and visitors, particularly Thursday through Sunday, and naming Balderas's restaurant as one of the biggest developments behind that push. The same coverage noted the city has relaxed open container rules within the Boardwalk district specifically, and that a prospective tenant is in late-stage talks to bring an art venue and glow paintball attraction to the property, though nothing is signed yet.
City Councilman Brian Hammons, who has lived in Bossier City his whole life, told the Advocate he couldn't remember the last time the city changed its brand at all. That the change happened at the Boardwalk, rather than city hall or a highway overpass, is the tell.
What This Means If You're Already Here
If you live in Bossier City, the practical version of all this is fairly simple:
- The Louisiana Wildlife Carousel and The Brine are both targeting a late-August 2026 reopening, timed to launch together.
- The Picklr is open now, with public play available and a junior program in development for younger players.
- Sidewalk Saturdays, hosted by the Bossier Arts Council, now happen outside its new gallery at 355 Boardwalk Blvd, with the council's ARTini fundraiser set for October 3.
- The city's own website for its new brand, bossiermoves.com, is live if you want to see how officials are framing the district going forward.
None of this erases the last five years. The Boardwalk has broken promises before. The III Amigos restaurant lasted four months there in 2023 before closing, one of several businesses that came and went during the years the property sat mostly empty. What's different this time isn't a press release insisting things have changed. It's that a pickleball franchise, a working chef, a displaced arts nonprofit, and the city government all made independent bets on the same stretch of riverfront within a matter of months, and every one of those bets was about giving people a reason to show up in person rather than a reason to shop. That kind of overlap is harder to fake than a marketing campaign, and it's worth watching closely if you're the kind of person who used to avoid the place.
If you're weighing a move within Bossier City, or just want a local read on how a neighborhood is actually changing block by block, Sage Easter has been working this market since 2007 and can talk through what any of this means for your particular street. Let's Connect.
