Iberia Parish Economic Profile

The Heart of Cajun Country

Iberia Parish, Louisiana and its progressive communities are the place for exciting opportunities. Iberia Parish offers a unique mix of southern fun and hospitality nestled in the heart of “Cajun Country.” Moss-draped Live Oak trees and beautiful antebellum homes serve as the backdrop for a hard-working labor force, cutting edge medical and industrial technology along with worldwide leaders in the exploration of oil and natural gas.

The Iberia Industrial Development Foundation (IDF) serves as the primary facilitator of Economic Development Activities for the Parish of Iberia, Louisiana; the communities of New Iberia, Jeanerette, Loreauville and Delcambre; as well as the Port of Iberia, Acadiana Regional Airport, and LeMaire Memorial Airport Industrial Park Complexes.

Abundance of Assets

An abundant labor force, an excellent intermodal transportation and data network, readily available land for business relocation or expansion centrally located along the Gulf of Mexico coast, and a strong economic development plan for the future all combine to make Iberia Parish and it’s communities a place that offers amazing potential for growth and success.

A wide variety of national and international companies are headquartered in Iberia Parish, which is strategically located on Louisiana’s coast between New Orleans and Houston. And with the combination of the Port of Iberia’s access to the Gulf of Mexico, an 8,000 foot runway at the Acadiana Regional Airport and its location on the future corridor of Federal Interstate 49, intermodal transportation into and out of Iberia Parish is easy.

Competitive Infrastructure

Port of Iberia

The Port of Iberia is a 2,000 acre industrial and manufacturing site surrounding a manmade port complex. The port has access to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Gulf of Mexico through its own Commercial Canal and has access to the Mississippi River through major ports in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The Port of Iberia is located in the heart of Cajun country along the Louisiana Gulf Coast between Houston and New Orleans. Home to over 100 companies with over 5,000 employees involved in oil and gas fabrication and production, materials handling, and marine services, our productive workforce is known worldwide. The Port of Iberia has water, rail and four-lane access and a fully instrumented 8,000 foot runway general aviation airport within three miles.

Great assets, top workforce, a pro-business community and our Cajun culture make this area a great place to live, work and play. Let us show you the opportunities the Port of Iberia has to offer. The Port of Iberia has expanded its waterfront property and has completed new bulkheading and dredging projects. The possibilities are unlimited when you add to this the existing industrial facilities, the constant flow of raw materials, and the multimillion dollar public dock facility.

Acadiana Regional Airport

Acadiana Regional Airport (ARA) is a fully-certificated General Aviation Airport featuring an 8,002-foot long, 200-foot wide lighted concrete runway and fully instrumented airfield, strategically situated between the major markets of Houston and New Orleans. The Airport Industrial Park offers land to expand, with 1,200 acres available for development, including prime runway and taxiway frontage.

Acadiana Regional Airport stands ready to meet the challenge of air-industrial development needs in Iberia Parish and all of Acadiana. We have over 1,000 acres of industrial land, in parcels from 2 to 200 acres; railroad on-site and extendable; industrial roadways and all utilities are available for immediate development in light, medium or heavy applications. Into that mix of infrastructure, add the all-weather capable airport including Acadiana’s longest, strongest, lighted full ILS instrumented, controlled land runway and lighted seaway, and you have the necessary ingredients for successful development or expansion of either a local, regional, national, or international business.

Acadiana Regional Airport is home to more than 50 companies and 1750 employees, including the world’s largest provider of helicopter services with Air Logistics, a Bristow Company, Aggreko, the global leader in the rental of power, temperature control and oil-free compressed air systems and AvEx, the world’s leader in aviation exterior painting.

Located just north of U.S. Highway 90 (the future Interstate 49 corridor) and just south of Louisiana Highway 182, the airport also features direct rail access, a 5,000-foot lighted water runway for amphibious aircraft, and a rail-to-truck off loading facility. And the airport’s close proximity to the Port of Iberia and its 13-foot-deep main navigation channel spotlights the intermodal transportation available. By air, water or ground, you can watch your business take off at Acadiana Regional Airport!

The Heart of Cajun Country

There’s always something interesting, fun or exciting going on in Iberia Parish. We love sharing our sense of community with our friends and neighbors, so local fairs and festivals abound. Our close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico makes saltwater fishing a popular pastime, and freshwater sport opportunities can be found in abundance due to our numerous bayous, lakes and of course, the Atchafalaya Basin.

Iberia Parish is home to numerous fairs and festivals throughout the year, including Mardi Gras parades, the Sugar Cane Festival, the World Championship Gumbo Cookoff, the Bunk Johnson Festival, the Delcambre Shrimp Festival, the Lydia Cajun Food Festival and the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival. In addition, downtown New Iberia hosts several Art Walks, a Farmer’s Market and numerous other parades and commemorative services.

Avery Island

Avery Island, Louisiana, the birthplace of TABASCO® brand pepper sauce, has been owned for over 180 years by the interrelated Marsh, Avery and McIlhenny families. Lush subtropical flora and venerable live oaks cover this geological oddity, which is one of five “islands” rising in atypical and mystical fashion well above south Louisiana’s flat coastal marshes.

The island occupies roughly twenty-two hundred acres and sits atop a deposit of solid rock salt thought to be deeper than Mt. Everest is high. Geologists believe this deposit is the remnant of a buried ancient seabed, pushed to the surface by the sheer weight of surrounding alluvial sediments. Although covered with a layer of fertile soil, salt springs may have attracted prehistoric settlers to the Island as early as twelve thousand years ago. Today, Avery Island remains the home of the TABASCO® brand pepper sauce factory, as well as Jungle Gardens and its Bird City wildfowl refuge. The TABASCO® factory and gardens are open to the public.

Contact

Mike Tarantino
President and CEO, Iberia Industrial Development Foundation
mtarantino@iberiabiz.org
337-367-0834

The Right Location is Waiting for You

We’ve got acres of opportunity

Port of Iberia’s Strategic Assets

  1. Main Navigation Channel is 13 ft deep, bottom width is 125 ft., and surface width is 200 ft.
  2. Over 2,000 acres of land under development
  3. Over 4,000 acres of undeveloped land available at the Port or adjacent property
  4. Over 60+ businesses are located and operating at the port
  5. 25,000 linear feet of bulkheads
  6. Public docking and stevedoring services available

Take Your Business to New Heights With Ara

  1. Airport complex over 2,325 acres, with 125 acres of industrial park and a planned expansion to include another 200 acres
  2. Over 50 industries and 1,750 employees are located and operate at the ARA.
  3. 8,002 ft. concrete runway and a 5,000 ft. water runway for amphibious aircraft
  4. Direct rail link, serviced by Louisiana Delta Railroad
  5. Intermodal access with rail to truck off-loading facility
  6. 100,000 air operations per year

Iberia Parish Partners

Iberia Parish’s local and area agencies and organizations work collaboratively leverage the strengths of each entity to create opportunities for business expansion and to bring new businesses into the area, both of which will create better paying jobs; thereby, improve living standards and ensuring sustainable growth.

Iberia Industrial Development Foundation

The Iberia Industrial Development Foundation (IDF) was established in 1984 as a Quasi-Public Foundation and serves as the primary facilitator of Economic Development Activities for the Parish of Iberia, Louisiana and the communities of New Iberia, Jeanerette, Loreauville and Delcambre, Louisiana as well as the Port of Iberia, Acadiana Regional Airport and LeMaire Memorial Airport Industrial Park Complexes. The IDF is also a member-driven organization made up of both public entities and private business members. It is governed by a 20 member Board of Directors which is made up of representatives from all local governing bodies, and local business leaders. In addition to recruitment of new business and economic development for the Iberia community, the IDF also offers business advisory services to existing local businesses in an effort to help them grow and prosper and provides a central location for dissemination of information of available resources that create business opportunities.

Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce

The Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce is uniquely positioned to help craft policy locally and regionally as they relate to business. With clear recognition regarding the interdependence of economics, the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce advocates for business at the municipal, parish, regional, state and federal levels. Topics for which the Chamber has recently been involved include parish-wide waste water and road infrastructure development, future corridor I-49, federal oil and gas regulations, etc.

Jeanerette Chamber of Commerce

Chartered in 1946, the Jeanerette Chamber of Commerce is a voluntary organization of Jeanerette/Iberia Parish citizens who are investing their time, energy and money in a community development program. The chamber is an agency through which people may voluntarily pool their energies to accomplish collectively the things for their general welfare, prosperity and betterment which no individual can do alone. With the combined effort of all members, we make Jeanerette a better place to work and live.

Iberia Parish Convention & Visitors Bureau

We invite you to savor the difference in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. We boast the world-renowned Cajun and Creole cuisine and the contagious music you expect in Cajun Country, but we also claim world-famous attractions such as the TABASCO® pepper sauce factory on Avery Island, America’s oldest rice mill in New Iberia, the Gulf South’s first National Trust for Historic Preservation house museum, lush tropical garden tours, and museums with amazing exhibits. We celebrate a rich cultural heritage with Spanish, Acadian, French, Creole, Native American and African roots.
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Iberia Parish has always provided us with the necessary labor and employees that we seek for our company. It’s a small community, but it reaches out to lots of areas, so we can draw from the surrounding parishes. So I believe we have a very capable workforce.

JADY REGARD

CHIEF NUT OFFICER, CANE RIVER PECAN COMPANY

Explore Our Region

Vermilion Parish

Vermilion Parish is known for its fresh seafood, bountiful agriculture, great access via road and waterways, and a rich history of cultural and eco tourism. This bilingual (English/French), coastal parish is large and diverse with wandering bayous and farmlands, authentic local cuisine, family-friendly festivals and Cajun towns connecting it all. Vermilion is centrally located in the southern part of Louisiana immediately adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. This proximity to the Gulf makes the parish an ideal location for the numerous companies needed to serve this region’s oil and gas industry.

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St. Mary Parish

In St. Mary Parish – or “The Cajun Coast” – the blending of French, Italian, Spanish, English, African, Native American, and Cajun traditions created a rich and flavorful “gumbo” of communities. The Atchafalaya River basin and the Gulf of Mexico serve as the lifeblood for the parish, which is composed of five municipalities: Morgan City, Berwick, Patterson, Franklin, and Baldwin, as well as the Chitimacha Nation in Charenton.

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St. Martin Parish

With a population of approximately 53,000, St. Martin Parish is part of the Lafayette MSA and sits at the corridor of both Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90.  St. Martin Parish is the only parish to have non-contiguous parts, in that, there are three major geographical areas dividing the 740 square mile parish, including the Atchafalaya Basin, the prairie, and the Bayou Teche area, on which several noteworthy cities, including the parish seat of St. Martinville, are located.

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St. Landry Parish

St. Landry Parish is moving forward. Located in the heart of Cajun and Creole heritage, this culturally diverse parish (county) in Southern Louisiana is a unique place both to live and do business – where hard-working people “live their culture” and are building a thriving economic base along with a high-quality trained workforce.

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Jeff Davis Parish

People from all over the world visit Jefferson Davis Parish to enjoy and experience rich Cajun and Indian culture. Jeff Davis Parish’s location, natural beauty, climate and small-town atmosphere offer a unique place for your family or business. The parish’s economic base includes health care services, shipbuilding, construction, agriculture, and oil field services. The parish has many industrial sites including the Lacassine Industrial Park on I-10.

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Iberia Parish

Iberia Parish, Louisiana and its progressive communities are the place for exciting opportunities. Iberia Parish offers a unique mix of southern fun and hospitality nestled in the heart of “Cajun Country.” Moss-draped Live Oak trees and beautiful antebellum homes serve as the backdrop for a hard-working labor force, cutting edge medical and industrial technology along with worldwide leaders in the exploration of oil and natural gas.

Learn More

Evangeline Parish

Perhaps no parish in Acadiana is more possessive of its heritage than Evangeline. Its citizens will tell you (seriously, but with a humorous touch, too) that they have the best gumbo, the best boudin (a sausage-like local favorite), and other Cajun delicacies. When it comes to Louisiana French country flavor, no parish surpasses this parish in the northwest corner of central Acadiana.

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Acadia Parish

Perfectly located along the I-10 corridor with major US Highways, railways, waterways, a port and airports, Acadia Parish offers the transportation resources needed for productive commerce. Cost of living and sites for business are affordable. This humble community is home to a culturally diverse and devoted population whose work ethic is as strong now as it was when their Cajun forefathers first settled here. Acadia Parish’s quaint charm makes it a great place to live, work and retire.

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Lafayette Parish

Affectionately known as the "Hub-City" of Acadiana, Lafayette, LA offers the essential elements needed to ensure the growth and development of its business community. Lafayette is set apart by its strategic location, a world-class workforce, a pro-business climate, and an unmatched quality of life. These attributes, complemented by a high-tech infrastructure and quality real estate, make Lafayette a unique place to live, work, play and do business.

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