The sidewalks and intersections in the Baton Rouge Health District could soon get facelifts.
Designs are underway for streetscape, sidewalk, bus stop and signage improvements along Essen Lane, Perkins Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard, with Health District officials intent on sprucing up the area. Those projects could include landscaping and art installations along the Interstate 10 exits as well as improved bus stops and new signs.
Rex Cabaniss of WHLC Architecture says he hopes to have the plans finalized this fall.
Cabaniss is expanding on the current Health District master plan to give the area a new look and, more importantly, inject more functionality to the infrastructure for pedestrians, public transit and the planned bike share coming to the area in the coming years.
“We want (each portion of the district) to all blend together so whenever you drive into the area, you get a sense the health district is a world-class area on the same level as any other major health district in the country,” Cabaniss says. “If we can put together a cohesive and coordinated vision for how that can proceed that will be of much greater value.”
The projects will likely be completed in partnership with developers, health care providers in the area or the city parish, Health District Director Suzy Sonnier says, and she wants the plans ready as soon as possible.
Improvements will extend to campuses outside the Health District itself, with the goal of creating some uniformity among providers’ properties.
“If we want to be a destination for health care, we need people to recognize when they come into the area that they’re in a different place,” she says. “We want to add some purposeful touches.”
The Health District, a brainchild of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, is a collaborative effort among Baton Rouge health care providers to bring resources to the area near the split of interstates 10 and 12 to Bluebonnet Boulevard.
Leaders have pitched the district as an economic development engine; commercial projects and hotels are already planned for the area. A new proton therapy cancer center is also in the works.
—Sam Karlin
