The Downtown Development District was first envisioned in Baton Rouge 2000, a master plan created during the Pat Screen administration in 1983 and updated four years later.
“The mind-set in the beginning was, ‘Oh my goodness, how can you take on that area of town?'” says Davis Rhorer, who has served as the DDD’s executive director from the outset. “It had such high negatives.”
Downtown still has a long way to go before it reaches the sort of 24/7 vibrancy for which city officials say it should strive.
In 2011, the DDD will reexamine its mission to determine what it needs to do to help downtown reach the next level; the committee leading the project met for the first time March 16.
When Rhorer started out, he says, Catfish Town, the Old State Capitol and the Old Governor’s Mansion were closed. So just getting some attractions open and making downtown a destination again was the first step. Downtown also needed a hotel, and it needed to stabilize its two historic neighborhoods, Beauregard Town and Spanish Town.
Catfish Town’s failure aside—the $28 million festival marketplace opened to 250,000 people in 1984 and closed in 1989—many of the early goals have been accomplished. How much credit the DDD deserves for the progress is debatable. Rhorer’s critics say he hasn’t done much beyond putting up some nice street signs. But to be fair, the DDD has little real authority, and its budget is tiny compared to similar bodies in New Orleans and Shreveport.
“Each project has a different ownership and a different set of issues,” Rhorer says. “Obviously, we don’t have the kind of budget that we can make things happen on our own. But we can facilitate and assist in putting the pieces together to make big things happen.”
The watershed moment in downtown’s recent history was the consolidation of state government. Former Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen is considered the driving force behind getting it done.
Rhorer visited the Legislature in 1990 to urge creation of a consolidation master plan, which upset landowners across East Baton Rouge Parish who had been making good money leasing to the state.
“That filled up 300,000 square feet of office space downtown,” he says.
Metro Council member Rodney “Smokie” Bourgeois says allowing the state to build office buildings and parking garages on prime real estate west of Interstate 110 to the Mississippi River, instead of on the other side of the interstate toward Mid City, was a mistake.
“All state workers’ cars have a beautiful view of the river all day,” he says.
Bourgeois says much of the money invested downtown—the DDD counts more than $1.84 billion in public and private funds from 1987 through 2008, including projects still in the planning stages—could have been better spent.
He scoffs at the idea of convincing more businesses to locate downtown when so few people live in the area. And he says it’s silly for city officials to say they’re creating the city’s living room downtown when some of the streets—”hallways” to that living room—are in poor condition or marred with blight.
“I don’t know what they’re doing down there [in downtown], but you’d think they could do better than they’ve done with the money they have spent,” he says. “There are other areas of this city that are so lacking, and are screaming and desperate for some kind of rehab.”
Bourgeois objected to spending $900,000 to convert St. Louis and St. Ferdinand to two-way streets, and he voted with the council majority that tried to block spending for a new downtown library. But he does give Rhorer a backhanded compliment for his advocacy.
“Most people, when they go to say something negative [about a downtown initiative], always preface it with, ‘I’m not against downtown, but …'” Bourgeois says. “He’s done such a fantastic job promoting his cause, people feel like if they say anything at all, they’re against downtown.”
Bourgeois owns three George’s restaurants—on Perkins Road near the overpass, on Highland Road near Staring Lane and on George O’Neal Road near Jones Creek Road—and he says he’s heard from people across the parish who oppose a new River Center library branch.
Rhorer says such opposition should not be seen as a backlash against downtown. He says people throughout the parish and points beyond enjoy downtown events like Live After Five, adding that surveys conducted as part of the FuturEBR parishwide planning process show widespread support for downtown.
“Downtown is a reflection of our city,” Rhorer says. “Everybody should feel welcome here, and I want them to take an ownership in this.”
Plan Baton Rouge Phase II, which launched in 2008 and focuses specifically on downtown, calls for a far more robust role for the DDD, so after 23 years the body is again re-examining its role.
Compared to peer cities, Baton Rouge has a small downtown with few residents, and the high cost of development helps limit housing options. Residential growth would be cheaper, and therefore more feasible, just outside of downtown, which is why consultants urge the city to expand its idea of what constitutes downtown.
The DDD could seek to make that concept literal and expand the district’s legal borders, for example, by pushing the eastern boundary from I-110 to 19th Street or Scenic Highway. Any change would be preceded by talks with stakeholders such as the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance, as well as landowners who would have to pay the DDD’s 10-mil property tax.
The Plan Baton Rouge consultants suggest creating a low-interest loan fund to promote residential development, to be managed by either the DDD or the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority. Some DDD commissioners would like to create a tax increment finance district over the entire area. Either idea could be a very tough sell politically. But planners say encouraging people to live near the city’s core will cost the community less over the long term, since the infrastructure is already there.
“You’ve got to make a great environment to attract them there,” Rhorer says. “It’s all about building a city.”
ROLE PLAY
Some of the goals for the new strategic planning process Downtown Development District officials will undertake this year might include:
• Expanding the borders of downtown.
• Establishing a nonprofit that could accept donations and membership dues.
• Initiating an entertainment anchor on the north end of Third Street.
• Redefining staff positions.
• Strengthening partnerships with LSU.
• Strengthening design guidelines in the arts and entertainment district.
• Creating a coordinated marketing campaign to package downtown as a cohesive, attractive shopping district.
• Appointing liaisons to Spanish Town and Beauregard Town.
SOURCE: DDD
