If you live in Marrero, you already know Parc des Familles as the place where your kids cool off at the splash pad in July, where you walk the dog before the heat sets in, or where you've watched someone line up a disc golf throw through the cypress trees on a Saturday morning. What you might not know is that on Wednesday, August 26, at 6:30 p.m., the people who run that park are holding a meeting at the Estelle Gym to show residents an updated Master Plan and take feedback before it's finalized.
That's two days from now. And unlike most public meetings that get announced and forgotten, this one comes with real money and real deadlines already attached. A new all-inclusive tot lot is set to open this September. Pickleball courts are coming early next year. Whatever gets decided this week shapes what a 610-acre park two miles from your front door looks like for the next decade.
The Meeting Most Neighbors Will Miss
Parc des Familles Advisory Board Chairman Glenn Julia gave the crowd a preview of this at a recent Westbank Town Hall at the Lion's Club, where he described a standing-room-only turnout and invited everyone to come back for the Master Plan reveal at Estelle Gym. That's not a formality. The Advisory Board exists specifically to recommend park improvements to the Jefferson Parish Council, and its nine members represent all three Westbank council districts plus two at-large seats. What gets said in that room this week becomes the basis for what the board pitches the parish next.
If you've ever wished the dog park had more shade, or wondered why the mountain bike trail doesn't connect further south, Wednesday is the window where that kind of input actually lands somewhere.
What's Locked In, and What's Still Open
Some of this is already decided. Some of it is still up for shaping. Here's the difference:
| What | Status | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| All-inclusive tot lot | Funded and in progress | Opening this September |
| Pickleball courts | Approved | Early next year |
| Splash pad, disc golf course, mountain bike trail, dog parks | Already open | Ongoing, unaffected by the plan |
| Updated Master Plan | Being unveiled for feedback | Estelle Gym, August 26, 6:30 p.m. |
The tot lot and pickleball courts are moving forward regardless of what happens at the meeting. The Master Plan itself, the bigger document that determines what gets built after that, is the part residents can still influence.
The Money Behind the Push
Here's the detail that makes this feel different from the usual park-improvement announcement: over the past year, Council District 1, the State Representative's Office, and Senator Pat Connick worked together to secure nearly $4 million for Parc des Familles, and the Parish Council approved additional recurring funding on top of that. That's three separate political offices coordinating on one park's budget inside a twelve-month stretch. Most neighborhood parks get whatever's left in the parish budget after roads and drainage projects are covered. This one has multiple elected offices actively lobbying for it, which is a different kind of commitment than a maintenance line item.
Representative Timothy Kerner and Councilman Tim Kerner Jr. have also been named as part of the leadership pushing this forward, alongside Senator Connick. If you're the kind of Marrero resident who pays attention to who shows up at Town Halls, that's a fuller room than usual behind one park.
The Nine People Who Decide What This Becomes
The Advisory Board elected its 2026 officers earlier this year: Glenn Julia as Chairman, Grant Roberts as Vice Chairman, Chasity Nunez-Bosch as Secretary, and Chad Frey as Historian. Their job, per Jefferson Parish's own description, is to advise the parish on planning, construction, and installation of park improvements, and to make sure whatever gets built lines up with the Master Plan rather than drifting from it project by project.
If you want to follow this closer than a single meeting, the Friends of Parc des Familles Facebook group is where the board posts updates between official parish announcements, and it's where Wednesday's meeting details first circulated.
What You Can Already Do There While the Plan Gets Sorted
None of this changes what's already working. Parc des Familles isn't a generic suburban rec area padded out with a splash pad and a walking loop. A few things worth knowing if you haven't used them yet:
- The 18-hole Grand Cypress Bayou disc golf course, redesigned by the Houck Design Group, is rated one of the toughest courses in the sport and has hosted the DGPT Big Easy Open. It's free to play, but bring your own water since access is limited on the course itself.
- The mountain bike trail runs 5.15 miles on a raised route through cypress swamp, with sections built for beginners and others with rollers and jumps for people who want more of a workout.
- The splash pad runs seasonally from Memorial Day through Labor Day, open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with 20 water features for kids 10 and under.
- Bayou Adventure runs a self-serve kayak rental kiosk near the fishing pier, four single kayaks at $20 an hour, life jacket and paddle included. You book it online and unlock the kayak yourself, no staff required.
- Two separate dog parks split dogs by size, one for dogs over 22 pounds and one for dogs under, which solves the usual problem of a single off-leash area trying to serve every size of dog at once.
This is the baseline the Master Plan is building on top of, not replacing. Whatever comes out of Wednesday's meeting adds to a park that already draws disc golfers from outside the parish and families who plan entire Saturdays around it.
Why This Week Matters More Than the Announcement Itself
Most park news gets covered after the ribbon-cutting, when there's nothing left to weigh in on. This is the opposite situation. The tot lot and pickleball courts are already funded and moving, but the larger Master Plan, the document that will guide what Parc des Familles becomes over the next several years, is being shown to residents for the first time on August 26. That's a narrow window, and it closes the moment the board finalizes what gets pitched to the parish council next.
If you've lived near this park long enough to have opinions about it, whether that's wanting more shade at the dog park or wondering if the bike trail could eventually loop further south, this week is when that opinion has somewhere to go.
Marrero keeps investing in the parts of itself that don't show up on a for-sale listing. If you want to see more of what makes this neighborhood tick, from local happenings to the market side of things, our Marrero neighborhood guide is a good place to keep tabs on both. And if the park upgrades have you thinking about where your own home fits into a neighborhood that's clearly still growing, Armstrong Realty is always happy to talk through what that looks like. Get a free home valuation whenever you're curious.
