For more than six years, Lafayette developer Michael Moreno and his sister Dalis Waguespack have been working on plans for a mixed-use development on Nicholson Drive that will be located between downtown and LSU.
They have acquired more than 40 acres of property—piece by blighted piece—in a slow, painstaking process. They have hinted at plans only to put them on hold. They have waited while the real estate market recovered from the national recession that almost iced the project entirely.
On Jan. 27, they finally unveiled details and renderings for the River District, as the project will be called. This time it appears to be for real, and by all accounts it is impressive: a 34.8-acre project that includes 1,800 residential units—both condominiums and apartments, a 220-room hotel, 100,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of retail space, including a neighborhood grocery store.
“We have anticipated this for a long time,” says Boo Thomas, director of the Center for Planning Excellence. “This is going to be a game-changing development that will benefit everyone, including longtime residents as well as people between downtown and LSU.”
The timing for the River District couldn’t be better. Late last year, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, in partnership with the state, the city-parish and LSU, announced plans for a 27.8-acre research park devoted to coastal studies. The Water Campus, as it will be known, will be developed between River Road and Nicholson Drive, just north of the River District.
On the other side of Nicholson Drive, closer to LSU, the university is working on its own master plan for redeveloping that portion of the thoroughfare. LSU’s plans call for a mixed-use development of residential housing, multifamily units, commercial and office space, with a price tag of between $140 million and $200 million.
Altogether, the three proposed developments breathe new life into a once-vibrant corridor that has fallen prey to blight over the past 30 years. Perhaps more significantly, the projects collectively will link the state’s flagship university, both literally and figuratively, to the state capital’s downtown. In fact, part of the plans call for a streetcar that would run the 3.5-mile stretch from LSU to the Capitol. The project is in the planning stage and is still several years away, but it is a very real possibility.
“This is the kind of truly transformative project we have been hoping for,” says Portland, Ore.-based planning guru John Fregonese, who has developed several plans for Baton Rouge and is currently helping implement the most recent one, FuturEBR. “Baton Rouge in the last 10 years has been on a tear. It’s amazing the transformation that has taken place. This can happen, too. It’s the start of something big.”
What: A 34.8-acre mixed-use development that calls for 1,800 residential units, a 220-room hotel, 100,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of commercial space, including a 40,000-square-foot neighborhood grocery store or drugstore.
Where: On both sides of Nicholson Drive near Magnolia Mound Plantation.
Who: Lafayette developer Michael Moreno and his sister, Dalis Waguespack; Steve Oubre of Architects Southwest is doing the design.
When: Initial plans will be submitted to Planning Commission Feb. 6; construction will begin later this year.
Why it matters: It will connect with the planned 28-acre Water Campus, which is closer to downtown, and also to LSU, which has plans of its own to redevelop Nicholson Drive near campus. Altogether, the three projects will breathe new life into what could be one of the city’s most vital and vibrant corridors, linking—both figuratively and literally—the state’s flagship university to the state capital’s downtown.
