Indoor playground to open on Florida Boulevard | Business | theadvocate.com

The Ardenwood Shopping Center on Florida Boulevard. Furniture Gallery is closing its Baton Rouge store as part of a redevelopment plan for the shopping center.

A chain of indoor playgrounds plans to open a location in the redeveloped Ardenwood Shopping Center.

Fun City Adventure Park has submitted an application to demolish and remodel the interior of 5905 Florida Blvd., according to documents submitted last month with the East Baton Rouge Planning Department. The plan is to remodel the space with indoor playground equipment, trampolines, foam pits, ball pits and an arcade.

According to its Instagram page, Fun City operates about a dozen indoor playgrounds in the U.S., with most in the northeast. The company recently opened a location in Montgomery, Alabama, in what had been a movie theater.

The size of the development was not disclosed on the permit application. About 63,000 square feet of vacant space in the Ardenwood Shopping Center is available after a flea market and Furniture Gallery moved out. The center is right behind the freestanding Rouses Market that opened in January.

A number of indoor playgrounds have opened in high profile retail spaces in recent years. Dallas-based Main Event opened a family fun center at the Mall of Louisiana in 2019 in the former HHGregg store.

Surge Entertainment, a chain of indoor parks co-owned by former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, opened a location earlier this year in a former Winn-Dixie space near LSU.

The area surrounding the shopping center has seen multiple new developments in the past few years.

The $200 million Amazon fulfillment center at the former Cortana Mall site is just down Florida, as is a 49-unit affordable housing development on the former Borden Dairy site. Additionally, a 100-unit apartment complex next to the A.C. Lewis YMCA is under construction nearby on South Foster Drive.

Email Timothy Boone at [email protected].