Moving to St. Tammany Parish Good for Business
For people moving to St. Tammany Parish, this part of the Greater New Orleans area includes a diverse arrangement of local businesses, franchises, and big box retail stores. There are also several large corporations that have locations
in the parish, such as Chevron, LLOG, Budweiser, WalMart, and others. It’s hard to describe a bedroom community that also includes opportunities for incredibly well-paying jobs with national corporations and plenty of shopping, dining, & entertainment venues. Main mall box stores include Belk’s, Dillards, & JC Penny, and other huge chains include Academy Sports + Outdoors, Target, Best Buy, and more.
However, St. Tammany Parish has cities in it that are still considered “small town” in the way that people interact. Referral business is still one of the biggest factors when getting new business as an entrepreneur. Pretty much any time anyone meets anyone, they immediately try to figure out the six or 16 degrees of separation of the people you and they might both know. Because of this, the parish has great quality of life, and has experienced phenomenal growth over the last 16 years.
Now, according to the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation, 2016 has shown a 20% increase in new 
business incorporations for entrepreneurs and businesses moving into the area compared to 2015’s numbers. This growth was focused towards the last 2 quarters of the year specifically the 4th quarter.
“We saw a significant uptick in new business incorporations in the second half of the year,” said Brenda Bertus, the foundation’s chief executive officer. “And we saw the most incorporations in the fourth quarter. We’re already seeing this trend continue in 2017.”
An astonishing 54.1% increase in new business incorporations were recorded during the 4th quarter for a total of 2,401 businesses in St. Tammany Parish. Also, hotel sales reflected the same growth with a total of $55.2 million and 18.8% of that amount adding up in the 4th quarter of 2016. Estimated total sales and sales tax collections were as follows: $4.8 billion and $229 million respectively.
