From pitch competitions and panel discussions to networking events and awards ceremonies, the Capital City was awash with all things entrepreneurial this week as Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week returned for its fourth year.
The Baton Rouge Area Chamber kicked off the week by delivering an overwhelmingly positive economic forecast for the Capital Region over the next two years, saying the nine-parish area is expected to add about 9,000 jobs in 2015 and another 8,400 the year following. The forecast growth would represent employment expansions of 2.3% in 2015 and 2.1% in 2016. The forecast also shows the residential and commercial real estate markets are benefiting from the Capital Region’s economic boom, but a lack of vacant office space could be a hurdle in the future.
At Wednesday evening’s big Pitch Night competition, which has become a highlight of BREW each year, all four companies that pitched at the Shark Tank-style event walked away with high hopes of landing some capital. United Networks of America had initially said they’d be willing to invest up to $1 million in and offer business assistance to the entrepreneurs behind the winning pitch. But aside from a crowd favorite cash award of $5,000, which went to MasteryPrep, no money actually changed hands on stage. United Networks is now discussing additional investments in MasteryPrep, while other competing firms—Bottoms Up, CommitChange and Spotter’s Fast-Fit-Food—are also hopeful they’ll land investments from some of the event judges.
Also this week as part of BREW, BRAC honored six local companies that have moved out of that nascent period and into a period of growth at its Companies to Watch ceremony.
Meanwhile, over on the LSU campus, construction management major Peter Palma took top prize at the Student Pitch Competition on Tuesday evening with his idea for a gun-magazine-shaped rifle cleaning kit for military use. LSU business students also heard from several local entrepreneurs at a BREW event held on campus Friday morning.
At yet another BREW event this week, a number of successful company presidents and CEOs who spoke to an Entrepreneurs’ Organization luncheon encouraged startup businesses to benefit from having a support group. And organizers of the Positively Powerful Women’s Morning said the BREW event could be the launching point for an even larger women-focused event in Baton Rouge next year.
Aside from all the BREW events this week, the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority’s board also met for the first time since president and CEO Walter Monsour submitted his resignation. The board OK’d hiring Gwen Hamilton as interim CEO, and at a salary that will be a fraction of what her predecessor earned.
But Hamilton will not be devoting all her energies to the RDA, which is paying her $75,000 per year. She will continue to work full time as director of community affairs with New Schools for Baton Rouge, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing in top-quality charter school operators to the city’s achievement zone.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top local stories appearing in Daily Report this week:
— A 19th Judicial District Court Judge has ruled that former State Sen. Rob Marionneaux must repay more than $1 million he wrongfully took from his former law partner Lewis Unglesby, with whom he was in practice from 2003 until 2012. The ruling comes as part of a civil suit over the dissolution of the former partners’ law firm, Unglesby & Marionneaux, and does not ascribe any criminal wrongdoing to Marionneaux, who served in the Louisiana Senate from 1996 to 2012.
— Roughly 35 homeowners in the Legacy Court subdivision, located off Coursey Boulevard just east of its intersection with Stumberg Lane, are the latest to request annexation into the City of Baton Rouge. The Metro Council is set to take up the request, which includes approximately 5.9 acres, at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
— Two Metro Council members are developing a resolution to bring before the council in January that would abolish the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Councilwomen Tara Wicker and Donna Collins-Lewis say they don’t want to get rid of the city-parish’s local control of alcohol permitting, but that the board isn’t operating according to its ordinances and needs to be replaced with new procedures.
— LSU Health Baton Rouge announced this week that it will open its second urgent care clinic in the city on Monday, Dec. 15, at the LSU Health Mid City Clinic, 1401 N. Foster Drive.
— With total sales at 667, just five more homes were sold in the eight-parish region covered by the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors in October than were sold during the same month the year previous, according to the latest monthly housing report from GBRAR, released this week. It marks the second straight month of stagnant sales, following a September report that showed eight fewer homes were sold during the month compared to September 2013.
— Owners of property in the proposed Baton Rouge Medical District in the Essen Lane, Perkins Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard areas are welcoming the new development concept but are taking the proposal with a grain of salt, says Geordy Waters, a broker with Waters & Pettit who manages several homeowners associations in the area. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation has been charged with spearheading the project and has hired Atlanta-based planning firm Perkins+Will, which has designed similar medical districts in other cities. On Tuesday evening, Perkins+Will representatives presented proposed traffic solutions for the area’s chronically congested arteries.
— Planning Commission staff members will meet in the coming week with developer Tommy Spinosa and the local franchise owners of the Alamo Drafthouse proposed for Spinosa’s Rouzan development to discuss details for the project such as parking, design and height restrictions.
— Renovations will soon begin on the Maritime One building at 101 France St., and some interior demolition work is already underway, Downtown Development District Director Davis Rhorer says. According to a plan review application filed with the Department of Public Works, the finished building will include 17 multifamily units on the second and third floors of the building. A parking garage is planned for the first floor.
— DSLD Homes will soon begin the permitting process for construction of 23 more homes in the Redwood Lake subdivision in Zachary, after purchasing the lots from developer First Horizon Inc. for $897,000. “Over the next five to six months we’ll pull permits and start construction. Houses should take about 120 days to finish,” says DSLD CFO Jeffery Purpera.
— Boutin’s restaurant, the Bluebonnet Boulevard eatery that features Cajun cuisine and live Cajun music, has filed a Chapter 11 voluntary reorganization petition in federal bankruptcy court, but owner Lynn Boutin says the restaurant will remain open throughout the reorganization process.
— Local attorney and Metro Councilman John Delgado plans to open his third downtown bar before the end of the year in the space at 421 Third St. that was previously occupied by 3rd Street Pub and, before that, Punchers. Delgado says he and his business partners, Andrew Bayard and Christian Walther, bought the business from Mike Labat, who is moving to Texas and getting out of the bar business.
— The developer of River House, a planned mixed-use development on the site of the old Prince Murat Hotel on Nicholson Drive, says after years of delays he expects to close a deal with lenders in the next few weeks, clearing the way for construction to begin on the development in early 2015.
— Sales tax collections were strong both inside and outside of the Baton Rouge city limits in September, driving combined collections to roughly $15.5 million in September, up 7.8% compared to the same month last year.
— With completion expected in the fall of 2017, a $110 million project to expand and renovate the Patrick F. Taylor Hall broke ground on the LSU campus this week. When it’s finished, officials say it will be among the largest free-standing engineering buildings in the nation, with the LSU College of Engineering seeing its space in the building expand from about 306,000 square feet currently to more than 462,000 square feet.
— The Louisiana Office of Facility Planning and Control unsealed bids this week for construction of an 86,000-square-foot Center for Excellence in Auto Technology that will be one of the cornerstones of Ardendale, the 200-acre urban village redevelopment project near Mid City that is being spearheaded by the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority. Ratcliff Construction Co., a 78-year-old Alexandria-based firm with offices in Baton Rouge, appears to have been the low bidder at $14.1 million.
