Bossier arts building director key to entertainment district | News

Arts programming in the Old Municipal Building and the East Bank Plaza are both now back under Bossier City’s direct management. Soon there will be a dedicated employee running the show, and, for Shane Cheatham, “the sky’s the limit.”

Cheatham, the city’s chief administrative officer, first explained the position when the City Council approved it last month as they voted to evict the Bossier Arts Council from the Old Municipal Building after the organization failed to send required financial reports to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor for the third year in a row.

The idea was to keep the building from sitting empty and to honor plans for upcoming programming by having the BAC or its partners book through this building director. But the vision for the role he and Council President Chris Smith expressed on Friday was a bit more expansive, and it may prove central to their goals of building “downtown Bossier City” into a bona fide entertainment destination with its own district.

For one, and most concretely, Cheatham wants to challenge the new hire to come up with Bossier City’s very own festival.

“Shreveport has the Revel, they have the Mud Bug madness,” he said. “… I foresee challenging this person with helping us create a Bossier City, you know, yearly event that’s centered around art and music and theater.”

“I don’t know right now what that festival is, but I’m hoping whoever the East Bank Arts Building/Plaza Events Manager is that they can have conversations with people in our art community,” he continued. “You know, is it a food festival? Is it an art festival? What exactly do we do there?”

Beyond that, the future shape of the role is a little uncertain, especially because the BAC is working toward getting back into compliance with state financial reporting requirements and may want to enter a new agreement with the city and move back into the East Bank District. In that unpredictable longer term, Council President Smith said the city’s new employee might be more focused on the entertainment district as a whole.

“So from our perspective, we were always going to need a city employee for that part of it,” Smith said. “… It’s very possible that it could just go back to how it was and the BAC’s running it but this employee is more focused on the greater entertainment district. Or it could be that they continue to property manage the building while focused more on the greater entertainment district. I think a lot of that is just not known.”

Plans to form an entertainment district in Bossier City stretching from Chasing Aces through the Boardwalk and East Bank District down to Live! Casino went public in December, and the city has recently taken steps toward realizing it.

They turned much of the Boardwalk and riverfront into an open container district to accompany the East Bank, and Smith says they’re continuously working with the Boardwalk’s ownership on their plans to revitalize the property by reorienting from big box retail. Cheatham said he didn’t have any immediate next steps to announce, but that they had a meeting this week to discuss the economic side of it, which Smith has previously said may include tax incentives.

Smith said the new role will be a “unique position” that will require someone with community and economic development experience since “you’re selling an entertainment district to the community and promoters to help hold events and do programming” while also trying to get older East Bank District buildings rehabbed.

The city’s job posting went live yesterday, Cheatham said, and he hopes to have it filled by June 1.

He also hopes that this bet on an entertainment rebrand can make Bossier a magnet.

“My vision is that we do create Bossier City as a place where on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights people are driving from Dallas,” he said. “They’re coming from Arkansas, outlying areas of northwest Louisiana to stay in our hotels, shop in our restaurants, go to a concert at the East Bank District outside on Thursday night. Friday night, going to an event the could be at the Boardwalk. And then Saturday night we have a big headliner concert at Brookshire’s Grocery Arena.”