Louisiana Boardwalk runs along the east bank of the Red River in Bossier City, Louisiana, opposite downtown Shreveport. It's an outdoor shopping and entertainment district, built on ground the city found for the developers and opened in May 2005.
Eight years in, a new owner relaunched the whole thing as an outlet center and pushed harder for factory brands in the storefronts. Nine years later, it had thinned out.
By the 2022 sale about 185,000 square feet was empty, so some of the biggest spaces went to tenants that aren't conventional stores. A church took one. An indoor pickleball club took another.
The church runs three services every Sunday morning in a building that used to hold the bowling alley. The pickleball club opened in February 2026, with a riverfront restaurant still to come. Bass Pro Shops is still open at the north end.
The Boardwalk started with one store
In November 2003 Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World opened on the east bank of the Red River in Bossier City, the first Bass Pro Shops in Louisiana.
The site had been picked to tie shopping to the casino district beside it. For the next 18 months it was the Boardwalk's only open store.
The rest of the Boardwalk hadn't opened yet. Bossier City had signed a master development agreement with Riverwalk Entertainment on June 1, 2001.
City records show it was buying land and planning streets, drainage, utilities and parking structures for the project.
The city-owned garage eventually rose four stories as the rest of the Boardwalk was being built.
The city's 2003-07 capital plan listed $27 million for the Riverwalk project and another $8.5 million for Traffic Street improvements.
So the first phase was one store. The garage and the rest of the Boardwalk came later.
What opened in May 2005
In January 2005 only the radio center's steel frame was up, and mud still covered the surrounding Boardwalk site.
Weather delayed work at the start of that month and pushed the schedule.
A month earlier the developer had been describing an 850,000-square-foot waterfront entertainment and outlet project.
The complex that got built measured 560,343 square feet.
The opening ran over three days, May 11 to 13, 2005. Regal opened 14 screens on the 13th.
That June Cumulus moved five Shreveport-Bossier radio stations into nine new studios on the second floor, with several windows and a glass wall that put part of the operation on view.
Under them ran restaurants, apparel stores, a dance club, and a promenade along the river with a fountain.
The pieces that were supposed to make the place more than shopping arrived late.
The Magnolia Belle, a 52-passenger open-air trolley 48 feet long and driven by two 30-horsepower electric motors, was built for the Boardwalk in 2005 and still wasn't running that August.
Neither was the carousel.
A Ferris wheel came in for the holidays in November, and the trolley started carrying people in December, seven months after the opening.
The outlet years
O&S Holdings defaulted on the Boardwalk loan, and in April 2011 the whole development went to a sheriff's sale, the largest the Bossier Sheriff's Department had run.
A bank took it as trustee for the mortgage holders and left the existing managers in place.
For two years the riverfront district belonged to a lender.
Garrison Investment Group bought it in March 2013 and changed what it was for. The center stayed open while Garrison changed the leasing strategy.
EWB Development took the retail leasing and marketing, and the property was relaunched as The Outlets at Louisiana Boardwalk.
Gap Outlet and Banana Republic Factory Outlet were already there, and that August a Louisiana Tax Free Shopping refund center opened for international visitors.
In 2014 Torrid opened, with J. Crew Factory and Charming Charlie announced for November.
By 2014 the roster was past 60 stores with ten restaurants behind it, and the property was selling itself to tour operators on 6.5 million visits a year.
The north end changed too. Margaritaville Resort Casino opened next door in June 2013.
Bossier City had awarded a $3.6 million road contract the previous August, and by opening week two roundabouts sat on city property between the casino and the Boardwalk.
The traffic work also added Colquitt Avenue access and changed nearby roads and turn lanes.
A church in the bowling alley
Routh Group bought the Boardwalk in August 2022 and took over a property that was 67 percent leased.
About 185,000 square feet of retail and office space sat empty, close to a third of the floor area.
Nike was still on the tenant list at the sale and had closed by the following year.
One large space went to a church. At 130 Boardwalk Boulevard, The Simple Church now uses the former bowling alley behind the Courtyard by Marriott.
Its 30,000-square-foot, multi-level building puts the main service space upstairs, with an elevator and outdoor stairway for access, while the event center sits on the ground floor.
During the rebuild, the church started holding Sunday services inside the Regal theater on January 7, 2024. It now runs services at 9, 10, and 11 a.m.
Nightlife came back in the same stretch. Sweet Caroline's Dueling Piano Bar was open by early 2024.
11 courts and an open cup
By late December 2025 the playing surfaces were nearly ready across all 11 courts, with the fences and nets already in.
The rest of the 39,000-square-foot club was still being fitted out before its February 21 opening, including lounge space, a pro shop, locker rooms, showers, private-event space, climate control, and sound baffling.
Membership was already in the hundreds.
Next door, work continued on The Brine, a 5,550-square-foot full-service restaurant and bar with an outdoor deck facing the Red River.
Then the city changed its own rules.
On March 17, 2026 the Bossier City Council adopted Ordinance No. 33 with no vote against it, creating the Boardwalk Open Container District.
Customers of permitted businesses can now walk out with a drink in an approved plastic cup and carry it along the streets, the sidewalks, and the public space inside the district.
The parking areas are excluded, and so is carrying one into a business that isn't part of it.
What the Boardwalk is now
Louisiana Boardwalk sits at 540 Boardwalk Boulevard in Bossier City, Louisiana, on the east bank of the Red River across from downtown Shreveport.
It opened in two stages: a Bass Pro Shops store in 2003 and an outdoor shopping and entertainment district around it in 2005.
It was relaunched as an outlet center in 2013, and in September 2026 runs as a mixed riverfront district with 23 retail tenants and seven commercial ones.
On August 31, 2026 management put the separate conversions together into one plan and laid out the next pieces.
The former Joe's Crab Shack building on the water is becoming The Parish Standard, a 220-seat restaurant, bar, and listening room, with a November target.
A 2,700-seat concert venue called Louisiana Grandstand is aimed at 2027, along with a Louisiana Legends Museum and outdoor stages.
Three more leases sat at the letter-of-intent stage and were unnamed.
Tenants and partners had put about $13.5 million into the property over the previous two years, $5 million of that the church and $3.5 million the pickleball club and its restaurant.
The owner and the city have been spending on paint, signs, landscaping, security staffing, and the parking garage.
On a Sunday morning now, three services run in the building that used to hold the bowling alley, and Saltgrass Steak House is still serving down the block.
Independent Publisher Notice
BestAttractions is an independent editorial publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any location, business, property owner, manager, government agency, or organization described in this article.
Comments posted on this page are not forwarded to, reviewed by, or acted upon by any entity mentioned in the article.
For official inquiries, complaints, applications, bookings, or other requests, please contact the relevant entity directly through its official website or other verified channels.