Medline

Medline, the country’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies, will have to wait another month to see if the St Tammany Zoning Commission will let it build an 800,000-square-foot distribution center south of Covington. The Illinois company has operated a 200,000-square foot distribution center at the intersection of La. 1077 and I-12 for more than 10 years. Now it wants to replace that facility with one that is four times larger. It would be constructed on 90 acres of land on Ochsner Boulevard Extension, west of La. 21 and north of I-12, serving as many as 175 trucks per day. Nearby residential property owners were part of an overflow crowd that turned out for the zoning commission’s meeting on Tuesday to oppose the request to rezone the land from Planned Business Campus to Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics District. After more than an hour of public comment and discussion, commissioners postponed any action on the rezoning request. A community meeting on the matter will be held Sept. 26 at St. Tammany Parish Council Chambers on Koop Drive at 6 p.m.  The case could be considered again when the zoning commission meets Oct. 1 for its next monthly meeting.