Even though floodwaters have yet to recede in parts of the Baton Rouge metro area, the supply of available apartments and hotel rooms is rapidly diminishing.
In a situation that is reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, large employers looking to secure temporary housing for their displaced employees are snatching up multifamily units throughout the city.
Developer Mike Wampold, whose Wampold Companies owns and manages some 600 units in Baton Rouge, says that by Friday afternoon all of his available inventory had been leased by Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.
Wampold couldn’t say for sure offhand how many units OLOL leased, but he estimates his complexes were 90% occupied at the time the hospital secured the remaining inventory.
“This is very similar to Katrina,” Wampold says. “We’re getting inundated with calls. We’re trying to get the word out that there are still available apartments in Lafayette, but just about everything in Baton Rouge is taken.”
Similarly, local hotels are also experiencing a shortage of available rooms. Wampold says his two hotels, the Renaissance and Wyndham Gardens, are completely booked, and Visit Baton Rouge President and CEO Paul Arrigo says to the best of his knowledge the city’s hotel properties are at 100% occupancy.
At the DoubleTree Hotel on Constitution Avenue, General Manager Gary Jupiter says phones have been ringing off the hook since Saturday. Dealing with the heightened demand has been made more difficult by the shortage of employees, many of whom have also been affected by the flood.
“We’ve had some troopers here that have been here since Friday, working around the clock,” he says. “Even with what they have had going on personally, they’re giving it their all.”
While Jupiter, vice president of the Baton Rouge Lodging Association, and Wampold say local hotels are being careful not to raise rates just because of the increased demand, local appraiser Tom Cook says that in the coming weeks, expect real estate prices to increase in areas that have stayed dry.
“There will be a huge demand for housing in our area that did not flood,” Cook says. “Obviously, there will not be enough supply to satisfy the demand so those prices will rise and I expect there will be price gouging, as there was after Katrina.”
—Stephanie Riegel
