Surge expanding in Metairie but doing away with trampolines

Surge Entertainment, the West Monroe company co-owned by Drew Brees that operates indoor trampoline parks and family entertainment centers across the South, is relocating its popular Surge Adventure Park in Metairie to a new, larger space in the same Veterans Memorial Boulevard shopping center that has been its home since 2017.

The move will enable Surge to nearly double the size of its Metairie location and to convert the venue from a Surge Adventure Park to a Surge Entertainment Center. The company operates properties under both brands. Adventure Parks are indoor trampoline parks, while Entertainment Centers offer an array of games, attractions and sports simulators plus a restaurant and bar—though no trampolines.

The Surge Trampoline Park is seen in the Magnolia Shopping Center in Metairie on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

A company spokesperson confirmed the change and said the new facility would open in the Magnolia Shopping Center, located near the intersection of Veterans and David Drive, sometime in 2024.

The change is one of several improvements that have been in the works at the 240,000-square-foot strip center since July 2022, when Surge Entertainment purchased the property from its longtime owners. In the year since, the company has begun a $5 million overhaul of the center and has attracted several new tenants that will join in the coming months.

They include Ochsner, which recently announced it is opening an elder care clinic in a space formerly occupied by Gordon’s home décor store, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Planet Fitness.

The Surge Trampoline Park, left, is seen in the Magnolia Shopping Center in Metairie on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Surge’s investment in the retail strip, which sat largely vacant after its anchor tenant, Kmart, closed in 2018, comes just months after Aldi grocery store opened its first Metairie location less than a mile away on Veterans near Power Boulevard. Taken together, the investments signal a renewed interest in the western end of Veterans Boulevard, which has been overshadowed for years by the more affluent eastern end of the commercial corridor.

“What you’re seeing is really a reinvestment in the western end of Vets,” said Corporate Realty’s Jonathan Fawer, the leasing agent for the Magnolia Shopping Center. “We have heard from a lot of retailers nationally and regionally looking for opportunities at this end because it is not as expensive as the eastern end of Veterans but the demand is still there.”

When Surge Adventure Park opened in a 33,000-square- foot freestanding building in the shopping center’s parking lot in 2017, the company had just a handful of locations in the state, all indoor trampoline parks owned by the company’s founder, Darren Balsamo.

Drew Brees tours Surge Entertainment with his business partner, Darren Balsamo, left, on Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, in Lafayette, Louisiana. Brees announced the official opening of the multi-sport facility to be Saturday, Nov. 23.

But later that year, then-Saints quarterback Drew Brees took his son to a party there and was intrigued by the concept. He met with Balsamo, bought into the company as a partner and began growing the business. Together, they launched the Surge Family Entertainment Center brand and expanded out of state.

Today, Surge Entertainment has 12 Adventure Park locations and four Entertainment Center sites.

Last summer, the company purchased the Magnolia Shopping Center from a trust owned by the Goldring family. The sale price was not recorded at the time, though court documents show Surge Entertainment has a $24.2 million mortgage on the property.

Since then, it has been renovating the center, including updating the façade and exteriors and reconfiguring spaces to accommodate the new tenants.

“This is a longtime coming and needed for the shopping center to have an upgrade and they’re doing a nice job,” Fawer said.

A part of the Magnolia Shopping Center is seen in Metairie on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

The western end of Veterans, which extends from Transcontinental Boulevard to the Kenner line, has historically been less expensive for retail companies. As it developed in the 1970s and 1980s, it attracted big box stores and car dealers.

Over the past decade, with the rise of e-commerce, many of those big box stores have closed and older strip centers have sat largely vacant.

But Fawer believes that trend is changing. The Aldi store is outperforming expectations, and his firm is fielding calls from other national retailers interested in the strip.

"With what’s going on we have heard from a lot of retailers nationally and regionally looking for opportunities,” he said.

Big box spaces farther east on Veterans near Causeway Boulevard fetch rents in the range of $25 to $30 per square foot, while smaller storefronts can go for more than $40 per square foot, on average, he said.

On the western side, large spaces average more like $16 to $20 per square foot, while smaller spaces lease for around $25 per square foot.

“Retail is still healthy and people still want brick and mortar,” he said. “On top of that, while it may seem like there is a lot of availability on Veterans, there are not a lot of projects coming out of the ground so existing spaces can’t keep up.”

Email Stephanie Riegel at [email protected].