Six months after announcing its relocation to downtown Baton Rouge, Nexus Louisiana is moving into the next phase of its expansion, with construction and planning milestones underway.
The organization’s new home at 440 on Third includes renovations across three floors. Nexus President and CEO Tony Zanders says permitting for the second floor has been approved, and construction is expected to begin soon. The organization remains on track to open its new headquarters this summer, targeting a date of July 1.
The second floor is designed as a modern networking and gathering space, described as a “hotel lobby” intended to foster collaboration among startup founders, higher education partners and members of the broader technology ecosystem.
Floors eight and nine will house Nexus’ headquarters and startup members. The organization’s tech startup members will operate on the eighth floor, while Nexus’ internal team and boardroom will be on the ninth floor. A new internal stairwell will connect the two levels, creating a unified experience. DNA Workshop is managing the project.
“Downtown Baton Rouge is where collaboration happens at scale,” Zanders said in a prepared statement. “This move strengthens our ability to connect talent to opportunity, industry to innovation, and ideas to the resources they need to grow. We are building a campus that reflects where Louisiana’s technology economy is going, not where it has been.”
The downtown headquarters is part of a planned $15 million investment in Baton Rouge over the next decade and positions Nexus as an anchor institution within the innovation corridor outlined in Plan Baton Rouge III.
Southern University collaboration
A key component of the expansion is an enhanced partnership with Southern University. Through the collaboration, Southern’s VR Jags program will co-locate within the Nexus space, placing student innovators and researchers alongside startup founders and industry partners. The VR Jags program develops immersive virtual reality solutions with commercial and workforce training applications.
“This partnership reflects a broader, statewide approach to innovation,” said Michael Stubblefield, vice chancellor for research and strategic initiatives at Southern University, in a prepared statement. “By placing Southern University students and researchers within an innovation environment, we are strengthening pathways between academic innovation, the future workforce, and Louisiana’s growing technology economy.”
Nexus members will also gain access to specialized hardware labs and equipment at Southern, expanding regional capacity for prototyping and physical product development.
Southern University has been represented on the Nexus board and governance structure since the organization’s inception.
Hardware space survey
As interest in deep technology and hardware development grows, Nexus is also launching a statewide hardware space survey as part of its strategic planning process. The survey, set to launch this month, will gather input from founders, developers, researchers and industry partners to assess demand for a dedicated prototyping and fabrication space in the Capital Region and identify the equipment that would have the greatest impact.
