DDD announces master plan goals

Phase two of Plan Baton Rouge, downtown’s master plan, is nearly ready for public consumption. The full plan is with the printer and will be released in the next few weeks, but the Downtown Development District has announced some of the pieces it will be working on. Those include:

—Helping to create a low-interest loan fund for housing and retail and entertainment businesses.

—Improvements to River Road in front of the Louisiana Art and Science Museum.

—Extending the levee top promenade to River Park, the large multi-use development planned for the riverfront.

—River Road crossings at Florida and North streets.

—Coordinating parking management, including shared use of state parking garages and creating maintenance standards for surface lots.

—Initiating an entertainment anchor on Lafayette Street.

Also at today’s DDD meeting, the commission unanimously endorsed the charter school concept proposed for downtown. Helix Network would like to open two charter schools with a total of 250 students the first year. The schools would be based out of the Shaw Center, but incorporate other aspects of downtown. Helix is meeting with the East Baton Rouge charter committee today; Helix will make a presentation to the full school board later this month, which the board will consider at its December meeting. If the local board rejects the application, Helix can still request a state charter from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.—David Jacobs

Electronic Arts plans layoffs; B.R. not affected

Electronic Arts plans to cut its work force by 17% as it tries to align its business with a transforming video game industry. The company, which opened a testing center near LSU last year announced the layoffs of 1,500 people just hours after it said it is paying at least $275 million to buy Playfish Inc., a maker of social online games popular on Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone. The layoffs are expected to save about $100 million a year. A spokesman with EA says the Baton Rouge testing center could actually grow as the company looks at moving some operations to areas with lower costs of living. EA said last year it would hire 220 full and part time workers in Baton Rouge over the next two years.

Energy expert addresses PSC

Renewable energy expert Craig Morris is expected to address the Louisiana Public Service Commission's monthly Business and Executive Meeting this morning on the subject of feed-in tariffs. The feed-in tariff is a policy that creates financial incentives for renewable energy production, regardless of scale. Under this concept, utilities purchase electricity generated by wind, solar and other renewable sources at higher-than-average rates established by the government. In theory, this system eliminates some of the disadvantages of renewable energy sources. Morris argues that such a system could benefit Louisiana. In the U.S., the municipal utility in Gainesville, Fla., saw a large increase in solar production after enacting a feed-in tariff, he says. That particular policy has been described by National Renewable Energy Laboratories as being among the best for advancing renewable energy production. Elsewhere around the globe, feed-in tariffs have been adopted throughout Europe after success stories in Denmark and Germany. In fact, Morris says observers credit Germany's feed-in tariff for that nation becoming a world leader in solar and wind energy. In his speech today, Morris says he was planning on pushing the system as a way to insert stability in the marketplace for renewable power production. "Louisiana probably has the best solar policy in the United States right now," Morris says, “The policies themselves need to be stable financially to continue to grow." A Louisiana native, Morris is a graduate of Tulane University.—Jeremy Alford

Ida weakens to a tropical depression after landfall, then heads east

Ida sloshed ashore with rain and gusty winds before losing its tropical storm strength today, leaving weather-hardened Gulf Coast residents largely unscathed. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Ida's center first touched land as a tropical storm on Dauphin Island before heading across Mobile Bay for the Alabama mainland. Top sustained winds dropped to near 35 mph and it became a tropical depression. Ida was moving northeast about 9 mph and expected to turn eastward to follow the Florida Panhandle. Tropical storm warnings were discontinued across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Forecasters said the storm had already spread most of its heavy rain onshore along the Gulf Coast ahead of Ida's center. The storm had shut down nearly a third of oil and natural gas production in Gulf as oil companies evacuated workers ahead of Ida. Still, demand for energy is so low due to the economic downturn, energy prices barely budged today. Oil companies are expected to fly workers back out to platforms relatively quickly to restart operations.

Nickelodeon ends licensing agreement for N.O. amusement park

The Nickelodeon cable television network says it has ended its relationship with a new Louisiana company it partnered with in August to redevelop the abandoned Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans East. Nickelodeon said it ended its licensing agreement with Southern Star Amusement because Southern Star failed to meet important contractual requirements and deadlines. Southern Star Amusement Founder and President Danny Rogers told the Times-Picayune that Nickelodeon had imposed an unrealistic time line on the company for raising money, given the dour economic climate and the fact that Six Flags, the park's previous operator, is still winding its way through bankruptcy court. Rogers says Southern Star is going ahead with plans to re-open Six Flags and may appear before the State Bond Commission later this year. "Nickelodeon, it would have been nice to have them aboard, but at the same time the project stands on its own merits," Rogers told the newspaper. For its part, Nickelodeon says New Orleans remains a viable location a theme park and indicated it may be willing to lend its name to another company that wanted to redevelop the Six Flags site. Read the full story here.

Less than a week left to enter Fittest Exec competition

Think you are more fit than your peers? There’s less than one week left to find out. The deadline to enter Business Report’s second Fittest Execs competition, in which Capital Region business executives compete in four categories (men 44 and under, men 45 and over, women 44 and under and women 45 and over), is Monday. The competition is open to executives (C-level, president, vice president, owner, partner, executive director or retired executives) and mid-level managers. In addition, companies with a minimum of five participants are eligible for a team competition. Fitness appraisals will take place at Bally Total Fitness Baton Rouge through Nov. 20, with the results to be announced in the Dec. 29 issue of Business Report. Click here to register or for more information.

Poll: Has the economy affected your company’s gift buying?

Monday's Daily Report poll has been taken down because of ballot stuffing.

Today's question: Has the national recession affected what gifts your business will give to customers during the holidays?

News roundup: Mortgage rates continue to drop ... Survey: Less than half of small businesses plan to give gifts

Down 2 basis points in a week: The national average for fixed-mortgage rates continued to fall last week, dropping 2 basis points. That put the average for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 4.84% for the week ending Sunday, according to the Zillow Mortgage Rate Monitor, and the average 15-year rate at 4.29%. Zillow says the volume of mortgage requests nationally was up nearly 5% from the week ending Nov. 1.

Numbers down, but spending steady: The number of small businesses that plan to give customers holiday gifts this year dropped slightly from 2008, but the amount budgeted for presents is the same. According to the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor, 47% of small businesses will hand out presents, compared with 52% in 2008. The more than 500 small businesses surveyed say they have budgeted $455 for gifts, compared with $457 in 2008. While companies are giving presents as a way of saying thank you to clients, they are cutting back on employee gifts because of the recession. Thirty-five percent will give employees presents, compared with 46% in 2008, and 31% are giving bonuses, down from 44%.