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The conversion of the top floor of the Commerce Building on Laurel Street into two penthouse units is complete, with the units being leased out.
That’s according to Deane Bryson, managing partner at Bearing Point Properties, who spoke at Tuesday morning’s Downtown Development District Commission meeting.
Bearing Point began managing the Commerce Building property around three years ago, according to Bryson. A group comprising the family of late auto dealer Price LeBlanc bought the property in 2022 for $24.7 million.
“What we’ve kind of realized is you need more people downtown to drive the retail need,” Bryson said. We had a space on the top floor that was initially built to house a restaurant. It sat vacant. We didn’t have the logistics of parking and getting the food up and down the elevator. We looked at it and said, ‘What can we do?’ We ultimately decided to go with residential units.”
The penthouse units are two-bedroom with two bathrooms, according to Bryson. Additionally, amenity upgrades were made to the building, including landscaping and an expanded gym.
Also on Tuesday, Capital Area United Way President and CEO George Bell said the renovation of the building CAUW has occupied since 1982 is nearing completion.
The building, located at 700 Laurel Street, is the original Old Public Library of East Baton Rouge Paris built in 1939.
The project began in July and encompasses both interior and exterior work.
“A little over a year ago, we reached a tipping point where every rain began to bring out buckets or garbage cans to collect the water and that just was not a good sustainable practice,” Bell said. “We vacated the building to make it possible for them to do it the last week of July. We’re within a stone’s throw of being back in the building.”
CAUW received money for the project through the American Rescue Plan Act, with no funding for work coming from donor dollars, according to CAUW Vice President Amey Crousillac.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
