Situated next to the future site of The Water Campus and just down Nicholson Drive from the planned River District development is a unique new retail center that’s helping revitalize the up-and-coming area south of downtown.
As featured in this month’s issue of 225 magazine, the 1010 Nic development occupies about 18,000 square feet of space that was formerly home to a St. Vincent de Paul warehouse on Nicholson Drive between LSU and downtown. Its tenants will include Mercer Supply Company—a full-scale salon, barbershop and mercantile offering handcrafted and U.S.-made goods—as well as Denicola’s Furniture & Upholstery, the eco-friendly gift shop Noelie Harmon, architectural and interior design firm The Front Door, Jeannie Frey Rhodes Photography and new contemporary art gallery CONTEMPORAIN Bankston/Adams Gallery. In addition, the space will be the new home for contemporary furniture store Monochrome.
“All the people we pulled together are very creative and give it this kind of young, energetic feel,” says Carol LaCour, one of the building’s owners and co-owner of Monochrome.
Projects like The Water Campus and River District are expected to spur even more housing and retail developments in the neighborhood. The city-parish is even exploring options for a streetcar line that would run along Nicholson from LSU to downtown, as envisioned in its FuturEBR master plan.
While much of this is years away, the 1010 Nic crew isn’t worried about the risks of being the first retail center in years along a somewhat desolate corridor.
“I know we were taking a chance going into the area,” LaCour says. “But I really think people are going to come, because it’s a new shopping experience for Baton Rouge and a cool, fun place to go.”
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