At this week’s Louisiana Smart Growth Summit, hosted by the Center for Planning Excellence at the Shaw Center downtown, planning and development took center stage during three days of panel discussions and presentations by local and out-of-state officials.
During his keynote opening address on Monday evening, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said smart growth is not achieved by annexing suburbs into the city, but by revitalizing the inner city. When Daily Report asked Wharton to compare Memphis’ history of annexations to Baton Rouge’s current rift with those behind an effort to incorporate a new city of St. George from unincorporated portions of the parish, Wharton advised both parties to tread lightly.
During a separate panel discussion, the issues of annexation and incorporation centered on the ongoing effort to incorporate a new city of St. George from unincorporated parts of East Baton Rouge Parish. Ken Murchison, a professor at LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, said the situation has brought to light some of the serious problems with the state’s statutes dealing with both annexation and incorporation.
And during yet another panel discussion, Planning Director Frank Duke said new design guidelines being drafted for Baton Rouge should ideally include height restrictions for new downtown buildings. Duke says one of the biggest problems with the city’s existing zoning code is that it allows for unlimited building heights downtown.
At a summit event focusing on a proposed Baton Rouge Medical District, Matthew Enstice, president and CEO of Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, said Baton Rouge has ‘all the bones in place’ to create a successful medical district. By “creating an ecosystem around entrepreneurship” and working to establish a medical district in Buffalo, New York, Enstice said the community has seen a number of economic and health benefits.
Also this week, former Parish Attorney Mary Roper filed lawsuits against five Metro Council members, accusing each of failing to comply with a public records request she made of all 12 council members last August. The council members told Daily Report the suits are merely a distraction, but not much of a concern.
And LSU area coffee lovers rejoiced when news broke this week that Highland Coffees owner Clarke Cadzow and the coffee shop’s landlord, Hank Saurage, have reached an agreement on a new lease that will allow the popular coffee shop to remain open at its location on West Chimes Street just outside the LSU North Gates.
Other news making headlines in Daily Report this week included:
— The Metro Council unanimously sided with the interests of industry on Wednesday night, when it voted for a resolution to formally oppose stricter air quality standards proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ground-level ozone would lower air quality requirements from 75 parts per billion to at least 70 ppb, or even as low as 60 ppb. The Metro Council resolution is non-binding and amounts to symbolic opposition to the proposed standards.
— City-parish officials are mulling over three short-term options to relocate the problematic downtown Capital Area Transit System transfer hub that’s currently located outside the Old State Capitol, and they plan to find a long-term solution through a study that will begin next year.
— According to the latest quarterly survey of about 500 Capital Area Transit System riders, the public transit system has drastically improved its customer service since launching a system expansion at the end of May. CATS officials highlighted some of the survey results at a press conference this week, saying the full results will be released at a meeting of the CATS Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.
— The East Baton Rouge Parish Library system hopes to progress on or wrap up several capital projects in the coming days and weeks, including hearing from consultants about the proposed south branch, concluding construction on the new Main Library and moving forward on acquisition of a building to house the Outreach Service Center. Consultants are scheduled to give desktop engineering and wetland assessments for five proposed sites for a potential south branch to the library board at its meeting on Thursday.
— The residents of Country Club Place, a small development of upscale townhomes on Brentwood Drive near Jefferson Highway, are suing The Powell Group, Brentwood Development Co.—which owns Country Club Place—and CCP Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with St. James Place retirement community. In a lawsuit filed Monday in 19th Judicial District Court, the plaintiffs say their property has been devalued and their ability to sell or market their townhomes has been negatively impacted because of actions taken by the defendants. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
— Jim Talbot has sold the Drusilla Lane headquarters building for his namesake real estate company, but he and his roughly 15 agents aren’t going anywhere. Talbot sold the roughly 4,000-square-foot office that he had built about five years ago at 2121 Drusilla Lane for $450,000 to Ourso Enterprises LLC. He struck a lease deal with the new owner—who intends to establish a State Farm office in the building—to lease back about 2,000 square feet of the office space through the end of 2015.
— Barnhart Crane and Rigging, one of the largest crane and heavy lift equipment operators in the U.S., has leased a 5-acre site in Gonzales and plans to put a small office and equipment staging area there, according to Mark Hebert, of Kurz and Hebert Commercial Real Estate, who brokered the deal. The site is located at the intersection of La. 22 and La. 44, and is owned by Robert Farms. The lease price is around $5,000 per month, Hebert says.
— At its meeting this week, the Downtown Development District board approved next year’s budget of $641,150, which is only about $9,000 bigger than the 2014 budget. The district is projected to collect just under $10,000 more in taxes next year than this year, at $497,650. Another $142,500 comes from the city-parish general fund.
— Louie’s Café, a beloved institution in the North Gates neighborhood near LSU, served its first customers at its new location on Thursday. The first customer at the relocated restaurant came in for a cup of coffee to go, says owner Jimmy Wetherford, adding he’s thrilled with the new space, but worn out from the move.
— From nearly dead last to the middle of the pack. That’s the jump on Forbes’ Best States for Business ranking that Louisiana Economic Development and Gov. Bobby Jindal are touting for Louisiana, which is ranked no. 29 on this year’s list. In 2008, Louisiana was ranked No. 49. The state jumped 11 spots from last year’s ranking.
— In advance of Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week, which kicks off Monday, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber this week released a new report titled “The State of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Capital Region,” which shows the total number of businesses in the metro area has increased by nearly 27,000 over the past decade.
— From a number video game developers and a mobile marketing firm to a farm-to-table delivery service, eight businesses will showcase their innovations at a Baton Rouge Area Chamber event being held next week in conjunction with Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week. The companies will display and exhibit their products and services at Innovation Alley, which is a part of BRAC’s Big Think event taking place all day Wednesday at the Manship Theatre.
— Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week organizers announced the four local companies that will make their pitches to a panel of judges for upwards of $1 million in potential investment at a Shark Tank-style Pitch Night competition that’s taking place on Wednesday night as part of BREW. Finalists include Bottoms Up, a social media smartphone app for restaurant and bar-goers; CommitChange, an easy-to-use suite of nonprofit fundraising tools; MasteryPrep, the fastest growing ACT prep company in the country; and Spotter’s Fast-Fit-Food, a healthy quick-service restaurant with three locations in south Louisiana and a fourth planned to open downtown this month.
