Louisiana Associated General Contractors and the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors are teaming up to develop a new four-story building in downtown Baton Rouge that will house offices for both entities.
Site work has already begun on the vacant parcel adjacent to LAGC’s existing headquarters building at the intersection of North and Sixth streets that will house the new 38,000-square-foot building. When completed, LAGC will occupy the top floor, while the LBC will occupy the three lower floors.
“The state LBC is funding the building, and we are providing the property,” says LAGC CEO Ken Naquin, who estimates the budget for the building’s construction at $6.5 million. “It’s a true public-private partnership.”
LAGC is a private organization that represents and advocates for the construction industry. The LBC is a state licensing agency.
When the building is completed, which Naquin hopes will be in the first quarter of 2018, LAGC will move next door into the new space, renovate the old brick building it has inhabited since the early 1990s, and either lease or sell it. The LBC will relocate from its existing offices at 2525 Quail Drive.
No vertical construction has begun on the building yet. Naquin says the project will be bid out in February in an invitation-only bid process. Bid specification packages will be going out to invited contractors in the next two weeks, he says.
The new building is the second major downtown construction project underway along Sixth Street, and signals that downtown’s revitalization is expanding beyond the popular Third Street corridor of nightclubs and restaurants. Last month, developer John O. Hearin broke ground on The Lofts at 6C apartment complex located at Florida and Sixth streets.
“It’s a good sign that we’re starting to see development moving away from the river,” Naquin says. “For several years everything was happening two or three blocks from the river. Now, it’s moving a little more towards the interstate, which is good for downtown.”
—Stephanie Riegel
