A former bedroom community growing with jobs and infrastructure
Just inland from Lake Pontchartrain, the Northshore city of Slidell has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a critical railway junction on the way to New Orleans, about 30 miles away. Today, the small city in St. Tammany Parish is home to 28,000 residents and a quaint downtown full of hip businesses and vintage shops. Locals say it's a city on the upswing, with a growing list of employers, high-quality schools and loads of development projects on the horizon. "Slidell is up your typical 'little big town,' as I used to call it," says Realtor Lisa Hayles of Marion B Real Estate, who grew up in Slidell. "It was a bedroom community to New Orleans, but over the last 50 years, that's changed. It's kind of a community that stands on its own now."
Big Branch is just minutes away from the marsh and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
Today, Slidell is home to 28,000 residents.
Slidell has humble beginnings as a critical railway junction on the way to New Orleans.
Slidell has a quaint downtown full of hip businesses and vintage shops.
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Established homes and redevelopment after Katrina
Slidell does not have the kaleidoscopic Creole cottages or grandiose gallery homes found in many Southern Louisiana communities. Instead, many of its most established homes are a mix of metal-roofed Acadian cottages or raised cottages built for the stormy environment. Downtown also includes a handful of stick-built houses and Queen Anne Revivals, some with a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Surrounding them are the first subdivisions of Slidell, built in the 1950s. Newly built homes are also found in outer areas, which typically include snout houses with a traditional aesthetic. Further south is the independent suburban community of Eden Isles, which technically belongs to the city of New Orleans. Katrina hit both areas hard, followed by gradual rebuilding. "The area that really got blasted, outside of the Eden Isles area, was this incorporated Slidell area. Now the south end of Slidell is rejuvenated, and it's got its 60- and 70-year-old structures that were rebuilt or updated 20 years ago," Hayles says. Homes in Slidell spend an average of 86 days on the market, compared to the national average of 44 days. The median price for a single-family home in Slidell is around $268,000. According to the most recent census, more than 70% of residents own their homes, slightly above average for Louisiana.
Raised cottages are popular in Big Branch-Fritchie Marsh.
Acadian homes are a great option when looking to move to East Slidell.
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Redevelopment of Olde Towne Slidell includes infrastructure and hip businesses
There are two primary commercial areas in Slidell. On the east side, the Fremaux Town Center is best suited for mall shopping at department stores like Dillard's or Kohl's, plus a quick bite at fast-food chains like Five Guys. But the local business scene tends to stick to the downtown area, which locals call Olde Towne. Between Fremaux Avenue and Pontchartrain Drive, the collection of old-timey boutiques are now occupied by hip businesses like art galleries, bicycle repair shops, upscale bistros, microbreweries, barcades, tattoo parlors, antique stores and coffee shops. Palmettos On The Bayou remains a premier dining establishment downtown, popular for its outdoor patio and menu of southern Louisiana cuisine. Downtown is expected to continue growing in the years to come, thanks to the second phase of a redevelopment project. The plan includes improvements to parking, plus safety measures like nighttime lighting and pedestrian infrastructure. The top priority, however, is addressing the threat of flooding downtown.
Slidell’s Fremaux Town Center is full of shopping and dining options.
Dillard’s is one of several big box retail options at Slidell’s Fremaux Town Center.
Many Slidell residents call downtown Slidell “Olde Towne”.
Palmettos On The Bayou remains a premier dining establishment in Slidell’s Olde Towne.
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Free outdoor concerts and seafood festivals at Heritage Park
Downtown Slidell is frequently alight with free and ticketed street fairs and festivals. The weekly Bayou Jam Concert Series offers free live music on the Heritage Park lawn, and the St. Tammany Crab Festival pulls in seafood fans from across the region for live music and a vendor village. The annual Slidell Heritage Festival, hosted by the Rotary Club of Slidell, includes a street fair and fireworks, with 100% of the proceeds distributed back into the community through local charities.
Heritage Park offers a free live music weekly Bayou Jam Concert Series on its lawn.
Downtown Slidell is frequently alight with free and ticketed street fairs and festivals.
Come celebrate Slidell’s Bayou Christmas at Heritage Park.
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High ACT scores for St. Tammany Parish School District
Slidell is part of the St. Tammany Parish School District, ranked the 10th-best district in Louisiana while receiving a Niche rating of A-minus. The district consistently earns the 2nd-highest ACT scores in the state, and its athletics are ranked the sixth-best in Louisiana. Many older students take advantage of a dual-enrollment program with Northshore Technical Community College, the largest such program in Louisiana. Nearly 40,000 students spread across the district's 55 schools, making it a major employer for the region as well.
Chahta-Ima Elementary School has 325 students in grades PK, K-3.
Whispering Forest Elementary is a Niche Top 100 best public elementary school in LA.
Boyet Junior High School has a safe environment.
Northshore High School is an “A” rated school on Niche.
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Hospitality, aerospace and healthcare employers becoming easier to access
Health care is a major industry in Slidell, primarily due to Slidell Memorial Hospital and Oschner Health, a large medical system across the state. Defense and aerospace industries also loom large, including NASA, which built a computer center in town in the early 1960s, growing the city's population by roughly 18,000 while serving as a backup to Apollo mission control. Today, NASA operates out of the John C. Stennis Space Center across the river in Kiln, Mississippi. "We still have a lot of NASA employees and a lot of second- and third-generation citizens from that NASA influx. There is still a notable NASA influence in Slidell. Early on, they had a major impact on education and schools," says Gregory Scott, director of the Slidell Museum. Newer employers include Cleveland-based gearbox manufacturer Horsburgh & Scott Company, which built a large facility outside Slidell in 2024, as well as Amazon, which opened a new distribution center in Slidell the same year. The hospitality industry is also benefitting from a recent expansion to Slidell's convention center. "They've been able to enlarge that, so it'll allow bigger conventions to come in, which is a good money generator," Hayles says. Residents of nearby cities like New Orleans often commute to St. Tammany Parish for work. Commute times are improving across the region. In June 2024, Slidell received a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan and design Phase II of the Bayou Patassat Green Corridor Project to better connect downtown facilities via sidewalks and crosswalks, new bicycle and pedestrian paths, a boardwalk along Bayou Bonfouca, new parking options, waterway transit options and a micro-transit program. For now, aside from on-demand transit via St. Tammany Area Transportation, Slidell remains a car-dependent area. The new city plan will dovetail with a parish-wide transit plan that will improve traffic flow in the long term in exchange for delays in the interim. For example, U.S. Highway 90 remains closed while officials look into repairing the road's bridges, temporarily cutting off a crucial connection with major job sites across the river in Mississippi, like the Stennis Space Center.
Slidell Memorial Hospital is a major part of Slidell’s healthcare industry.
Ochsner Health is a large statewide medical system located in Slidell.
A boardwalk along Bayou Bonfouca offers a great place for walks.
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Baseball and soccer leagues at Fritchie Park
Massive wildlife refuges surround Slidell, including endless acres of creeks and bayous in the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area and the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, both just outside the city. In town, major parks include Heritage Park, Fritchie Park and John Slidell Park, plus a collection of smaller parks, playgrounds and community pools throughout the city, like Possum Hollow Park. Heritage Park is the main downtown park, popular for picnics and playground visits as well as live events and access to Bayou Bonfouca.
Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge is just north of New Orleans in Big Branch.
Heritage Park is popular outdoor location with residents.
Catch a round of Ultimate Frisbee at Fritchie Park.
John Slidell Park is a great place for families to gather and have fun.
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Things to consider
Slidell was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2006. One measure of the destruction: The Slidell Museum lost nearly 95% of its materials. Since then, improvements have been made to the city's mitigation measures, especially since the city is less than 5 miles from Lake Pontchartrain, making it susceptible to storm surge and flooding in the waterways that flow through town. "We've had a great deal of road reworking and sidewalk reworking recently. We've also had some pumps improved," Hayles says. "Another program that's not necessarily FEMA-related or Katrina-related was a commission put together to try to find a way to protect Slidell with better levies." Alongside downtown, a mile stretch of Bayou Bonfouca is a designated superfund site due to a now-closed creosote plant that contaminated area groundwater, which is still under restricted use by the city. Slidell's downtown also deals with higher crime rates than the rest of the city, although the city as a whole faces lower crime compared to neighboring cities like New Orleans. According to Neighborhood Scout, violent crime occurs in Slidell at a rate of 2.69 per 1,000 residents, compared to the national average of 4 per 1,000 and the state average of 6.29.
Written By
Tom Jakob
Photography Contributed By
Andrew Williams
Video By
Vladislav Sedykh
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