After delivering a speech at the Atlas Foundation’s Annual Friendship and Dialogue Dinner this week, East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority President and CEO Walter Monsour told Daily Report that “I have a lot to think about” regarding his future with the agency.
The effectiveness of the RDA and Monsour’s role as its leader has been called into question in recent weeks, with Mayor Kip Holden criticizing both the agency and Monsour, his one-time chief of staff and political ally. The controversy began after the RDA board of commissioners voted to ask the Metro Council for an annual $3 million appropriation to keep the agency afloat.
Holden responded by criticizing Monsour’s reported $365,000 annual salary and benefits package and questioning his effectiveness as the agency’s leader. More recently, allegations of impropriety also arose regarding the relationship between the RDA and Butler Snow law firm, where Monsour’s son, Jordan Monsour, is an attorney. Butler Snow represented clients that received funds from the RDA.
Earlier in the week RDA Board Chairman John Noland told Daily Report that he has been “sounding [out] board members one on one” and that the board is “evaluating our course of action.”
Also this week, some Metro Council members told Daily Report that details on a proposed committee to vet applicants for the vacant parish attorney position haven’t been ironed out, while others say they haven’t been included in discussions with Mayor Pro Tem Chandler Loupe, who first sponsored an item to create the committee on Sept. 24. The item has been deferred twice since then.
Councilman Joel Boé asked for the item to be deferred at the meeting Oct. 8 because of unanswered questions, he says.
“What’s their goals? What’s the mission? What are we going to get them to go do?” are among the questions Boé still has. “We need to make sure that we as a council, if we assign a committee, that they know what they are charged with. I’ve asked [Loupe] a couple of questions about it, and we haven’t gotten to the point we have gotten it resolved.”
Other stories making headlines in Daily Report this week include:
— Construction will begin within the next three weeks on the $30 million redevelopment of the historic Commerce Building downtown. The project’s developers announced this week they have closed on the financing for the project and are ready to begin converting the 59-year-old, vacant office building, which is on the corner of Laurel and North Third streets, into a 93-unit apartment complex with 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
— By the end of 2015, Baton Rouge is expected to see more than 2,700 new apartments come on the market, with several big projects already nearing completion. Among them is The District, a massive 312-unit, three-building complex on Perkins Road, which is under development by Vintala Partners. A portion of the first building has been completed, but only five units are currently occupied. Wesley Moore, a multifamily market specialist with Cook, Moore and Associates, says the Baton Rouge market has historically absorbed about 900 new units annually. Moore says the new construction isn’t enough to oversaturate the market just yet, but adds that it could be a concern in the future.
— In the coming weeks, the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors will complete an overhaul of its Multiple Listing Service website, which potential home buyers use to browse homes listed for sale in the eight-parish Capital Region. The site is currently down, and GBRAR does not yet have an exact date when the new site will be launched. GBRAR IT Director Ken Damann says the site has seen several updates since it was originally launched in the late 1990s, but never a complete revamp like the one it’s undergoing now.
— A roughly 1.5-acre tract of land in The Grove, a mixed-use development off Interstate 10 near the Mall of Louisiana, has been sold to Labat Grove LLC, managed by Scott McLain of Fort Smith, Arkansas, for $900,000. Developer Richard Carmouche says the tract will eventually house the Area 51 indoor trampoline park. Construction should begin on the building soon, he says.
— The Deville Apartments, one of Baton Rouge’s more striking examples of mid-century modern architecture, is slated for a $2.5 million renovation. Collis Temple Jr., who is the owner and contractor on the project, has filed for permits with the city-parish to remodel the complex, which consists of a 17,000-square-foot, glass-front-paneled main building with 30 apartments, and two smaller buildings with a total of 12,000 square feet and 22 apartments.
— Clark Heebe, who owns Broadmoor Village Shopping Center, has purchased the roughly 21 acres that the center is situated on, on Florida Boulevard near the Airline Highway intersection, for $1 million. Though he has owned the buildings on the land for years, Heebe until now has been leasing the land under a long-term deal that wasn’t set to expire for another 36 years.
— Cinemark Theaters won a key victory in its seven-year battle with Central Facilities Operating Co. over chilled water rates at Perkins Rowe. In a ruling issued this week, U.S. District Judge James Brady capped at 8.3 cents per ton hour the amount the theater company owes Central Facilities for providing chilled water for the theater’s air conditioning system. That means Cinemark will have to pay just $235,000 for seven years of unpaid water bills, instead of $846,000, which is the amount Central Facilities alleged it was owed.
— Lower gas prices may loosen up a little extra cash in consumers’ budgets, but for the state, lower prices at the pump signal a drop in the price of oil, which means less revenue for state services like health care and higher education. According to Jim Richardson, an economist with LSU who is also involved with the state budget process, the state could bring in roughly $200 million less than the $808.2 million it is projected to collect in oil and gas severance taxes this fiscal year due to the dip in prices.
— Midway through the state’s 30-day tax amnesty period, officials with the Louisiana Department of Revenue say they’re pleased with the response they have received so far. Though the department does not yet have any data on how much of the potential $1.9 billion in unpaid state taxes it stands to eventually recover, spokesperson Kizzy Payton says response so far has been “on target” with what was expected.
— The greater Baton Rouge area has surpassed New Orleans and surrounding suburbs as the state’s largest voting region, Secretary of State Tom Schedler told the Press Club of Baton Rouge this week. The largest voting area “has dramatically swung to East Baton Rouge,” Schedler says. “The Orleans/Jefferson area is not the dominant area any more.”
