The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is selling its downtown headquarters at 402 N. Fourth St.—a three-story, 19,376-square foot office building it constructed in 2007. The listing price is $4.08 million, or $210 per square foot. Realtor Hank Saurage is listing the building and says demand for the property is strong.
“We have a few very interested buyers we are working with,” he says. “We have identified a half dozen potential buyers for this property and other buildings in the downtown market. Activity is heating up.”
Saurage declines to comment on why BRAF is selling the building or where the foundation and its for-profit real estate company, Commercial Properties Realty Trust, might be moving. But in a statement to Daily Report, BRAF confirms it is relocating to the new IBM riverfront tower, where both the foundation and CRPT will occupy the top floor of the nine-story building.
The new space is 23,000 square feet—more than the entire BRAF building on Fourth Street and will enable BRAF and CPRT to almost double the amount of usable room the two entities have for their combined staff of nearly 50, the statement says.
Commercial Properties is developing the IBM building and the adjacent residential tower, 525 Lafayette, as part of a deal that was confected to help bring IBM to Baton Rouge. Later this month, law firm Fishman Haygood will move into the eighth floor of the building.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from an earlier version to include comments from BRAF.
