On weekends and during the weekday lunch rush, downtown Baton Rouge is vibrant, with people working, enjoying a drink or a meal, or visiting one of a handful of attractions.
But it’s a completely different scene on weeknights, with deserted streets that make for-lease signs posted in empty buildings seem much more obvious.
Given that environment, it’s understandably difficult for retailers and restaurateurs to grow.
“You could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anybody in downtown on a weekday night,” says Gus Pagoulato, a master chef and managing interest in 333 Bistreaux, an upscale restaurant and bar on Third Street. “Everyone leaves after 5 p.m. It’s deserted.”
The lack of a 24-hour market is a challenge Pagoulato deals with every day. It’s also an obstacle that seems insurmountable to startup businesses and even gives larger retailers pause.
“A store like Subway does great during the weekly lunchtime crowd,” says Branon Pesnell, an associate broker with Beau Box Commercial Real Estate. “But during the week evenings or on the weekends, it’s difficult to thrive. That’s a hard sell to retailers that could make a higher profit elsewhere.”
Pesnell says 20%—or about 450,000 square feet—of commercial space in downtown Baton Rouge is currently vacant. About half of that is accounted for by the addition of II City Plaza—which added 260,000 square feet to the market—as well as the renovation of the Commercial Building at Laurel and Third streets.
“When you take those projects into account, you’re really only talking about 15%,” Pesnell says. ”That’s really not a bad number in context.”
Access also is a huge challenge associated with downtown commercial space, Pesnell says. For an office that sees clients daily, adequate and convenient parking is a necessity. That’s even more true for retail outlets, Pesnell says, because their profits directly rely on how many people they can get into their store on a daily basis.
Enter a hypothetical dress shopper who wants to enjoy the downtown experience. The average person would have to take off work in order to shop during store hours on a weekday. There’s no parking spot in front of the boutique, and the only ones available are metered and several blocks away.
“How long would it take before that shopper would decide it was too much effort to make the trip?” Pesnell says. “It’s asking a lot of potential customers.”
Parking essentially asks potential tenants to tack on an additional $2 per square foot for a downtown commercial space that already ranges $16 to $18 per square foot, Pesnell says.
“It’s cost-prohibitive, especially to retailers, unless they are trendy and want to be downtown just to jump on the bandwagon,” Pesnell says. ”Smaller companies with four to 10 employees at the most could handle it the best, but most traditional companies could not.”
Downtown Baton Rouge has come a long way in seven years, says Downtown Development District executive director Davis Rhorer, and boasts much more commercial development. A partnership between Hollywood Casino and the proposed River Park was created for an underpass that will connect downtown to 36 acres on which the $600 million mixed-use development is scheduled to be built.
DDD is also putting together a plan, to be made available later this month, that will utilize incentives to encourage more residential development downtown, Rhorer says. The idea is that once bolstered by more local residents, a vibrant downtown market will give businesses even more incentive to locate into the area.
“Part of urban living is being able to walk to restaurants, a bookstore or the post office,” Rhorer says. “That’s what we want to offer—a dynamic, 24-hour downtown experience.”
But Pagoulato is tired of hearing lip service.
After working in downtown Baton Rouge for three years and building a business for one, he has seen a lot of faces. The problem, Pagoulato says, is that the faces remain the same.
“I hear people say, ‘We’re going to develop this, we’re going to develop that,’” Pagoulato says. “Nothing happens. All of the merchants downtown are fighting over the same piece of pie. It’s about capitalizing on the weaknesses of others—cannibalization.”
The question of whether downtown Baton Rouge development will come from residential or commercial development is one that needs to be solved by public officials, he says.
“The powers that be need to make up their minds as to what downtown should be,” Pagoulato says. “Should it be a small viable community like Spanish Town, or should it be an entertainment district? It’s a matter of deciding and sticking with it.”
