Board members from the Center for Planning Excellence took a three-hour driving tour this morning of north Baton Rouge in an effort to better understand the area, its needs and its potential.
“So many people from south Baton Rouge think of north Baton Rouge as the area around the airport and Howell Place,” CPEX President/CEO Elizabeth “Boo” Thomas says. “They have no idea there’s so much more there. Many people have no concept of how much land is available, and how much undeveloped, buildable land.”
Thomas conceived of the idea for the tour after taking an extensive tour of north Baton Rouge earlier this year for her work as co-chair of Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s North Baton Rouge Revitalization Transition Team. She says the January tour gave her a new perspective on the area—one she wanted to share with the CPEX board.
Rinaldi Jacobs, interim executive director of the Baton Rouge North Economic Development District, led this morning’s tour, which started on Airline Highway and went through Howell Place, Southern Heights, Southern University, middle class neighborhoods, low-income and blighted areas, as well as the industrial corridor along Choctaw Drive and Oak Villa Boulevard. It also included a drive by the new McKay Automotive Training Center at Ardendale and down North Foster Drive.
Some of the highlights of the tour were the new single-family homes being built by Bryan Lafleur, who acquired several adjudicated lots from the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority several years ago and is redeveloping the property into 19 new homes. They range in size from 1,500 to 1,800 square feet and will sell from between $115,000 and $120,000.
“These are gorgeous starter homes,” Thomas says. “Anyone would want to live there.”
The biggest takeaways from the tour?
North Baton Rouge is much larger and more diverse than many people realize, Thomas says. Also, there are pockets of development and investment, and a lot of unrealized potential in the area.
“I think the takeaway was very positive,” she says. “This is an area that comprises two-thirds of our parish and there is a lot of promise. Each time I take the tour, I come away more encouraged.”
—Stephanie Riegel
