By james art 
An indoor playground chain plans to open a location in the redeveloped Ardenwood Shopping Center.
Fun City Adventure Park has applied to demolish and renovate the interior at 5905 Florida Blvd., according to documents filed last month with the East Baton Rouge Planning Department. The plan is to revamp the space with strollers, a rock climbing wall, indoor playground equipment, trampolines, foam pits, ball pits and an arcade.
The plan is to have the playground open in the next 9 to 12 months, said Mario Brunelli, real estate broker for Fun City. Tenancy to start in 7 months.
Fun City operates about 25 indoor playgrounds in the US, most of them in the Northeast. The company recently opened a location in Montgomery, Alabama, in what used to be a movie theater.
Fun City will occupy about 63,000 square feet in the Ardenwood Shopping Center, making the Baton Rouge location one of the largest for the company, Brunelli said.
“We think it’s a great location,” he said. “We thought it was more of a centralized location than our competitors there.”
In recent years, a number of indoor playgrounds have opened in high-profile shopping areas. Dallas-based Main Event opened a family entertainment center at the Mall of Louisiana in 2019 in the former HHGregg store.
Surge Entertainment, an indoor theme park chain co-owned by former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, opened a location earlier this year in the former Winn-Dixie space near LSU.
Fun City will go into a space in Ardenwood that has been occupied by a furniture gallery and flea market. The center is right behind the free-standing Rusenski Market, which opened in January.
The area around the mall has seen a lot of new development in the past few years.
Amazon’s $200 million fulfillment center at the former Cortana Mall is just down the road in Florida, as is a 49-unit affordable housing development at the former Borden Dairy site. Additionally, a 100-unit apartment complex next to the AC Lewis YMCA is under construction nearby on South Foster Drive.