Global contractor MMR Group is moving forward with a roughly $10 million expansion in Ascension Parish, adding new office and support facilities as the company continues to scale operations and hiring.
The Baton Rouge-based firm is developing two facilities just across the parish line from its existing campus: a roughly 20,000-square-foot office to house its human resources operations, and a similarly sized space for the management team of its Fabricated Pipe Inc. division, which is leasing space on Industriplex Boulevard until construction is complete.
“We’re just out of space here, and that property came up,” says Pepper Rutland, founder, president and CEO of MMR. “That was just a matter of need.”
The expansion is aimed at alleviating congestion at the company’s main campus, where more than 600 employees are based. Rutland says the site often becomes strained during large hiring pushes tied to major projects.
The Ascension Parish site is expected to be completed by September, providing additional capacity for recruiting, training and administrative functions.
Fabricated Pipe Inc.’s main fabrication facility is roughly 120,000 square feet and located in Fernwood, Mississippi, Rutland says. MMR Group brought the company’s management team to the Capital Region. In addition to the two Ascension facilities, the company has also added roughly 20,000 square feet to its main office on Airline Highway.
The new facilities will play a key role in workforce development—an area Rutland says is critical as MMR expands into emerging sectors such as data centers, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and steel.
“That’s a key for us,” he says. “We’re having to train our workforce as we go, just like everybody else is. We’re putting a lot of money and a lot of effort in workforce training, because that’s the need that’s missing today in the industrial revolution that’s going on in this country.”
The Ascension Parish expansion is part of a broader wave of growth for the company, which employs nearly 10,000 workers nationwide and operates about 30 offices across the U.S. Rutland says most locations are either undergoing improvements or preparing for new investment.
Despite opportunities to expand elsewhere, including Texas, Rutland says the company remains committed to growing in Louisiana.
MMR Group opened a 200,000 square-foot facility in Lafayette earlier this year, representing a roughly $55 million investment.Â
“We’ve been asked why we stayed in Louisiana, but we’re all from here, and the workforce has always been good here, and we know we have to supplement that and put in more training,” Rutland says. “A lot of our major clients ask us why aren’t we in Houston in particular. We’d rather grow here than grow in Texas.”
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