Before Wednesday’s announcement that the LSU-South Carolina football game was being moved from Columbia to Baton Rouge, the big news at the outset of this week came in the form of a flurry of large building and land sales.
Between Monday and Tuesday, Daily Report broke news of the $9.55 million sale of the 70,500-square-foot office building at 9100 Bluebonnet Centre Blvd., as well as Mike Hogstrom’s planned residential development on the site of Goodwood Plantation. Hogstrom’s firm, Onsite Design, has a purchase agreement to acquire the 17-acre plantation home and grounds and redevelop the property into a 48-lot subdivision called Adelia at Old Goodwood, with the 165-year-old home serving as the centerpiece of the project.
Also, the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse building and property on Constitution Avenue was purchased for $2.35 million by Christopher Bachman, who has owned the business for the past four years. And an owner of The Velvet Cactus restaurant was among a group of investors who purchased the former Dyson House property at 7575 Jefferson Highway for $1.5 million with plans to improve parking and access to the restaurant on Old Hammond Highway. About 60% of the property was in turn sold for about $972,000 to John Burns, owner of Christian Street Furniture, who has about seven years left on its current lease at 7474 Corporate Blvd., Suite 203, but has long-term plans to relocate the business to the Jefferson Highway site.
But those headlines and took a backseat to college football after the devastating flooding in South Carolina led officials to announce Saturday’s game would be moved to Baton Rouge. The move leaves the LSU Tigers in the unusual position of playing what is technically an away game inside Tiger Stadium.
The news set off a flurry of changed plans, with several events scheduled to take place on the LSU campus Saturday being moved or rescheduled, including the Alzheimer’s Services Walk/Run to Remember. It also caused the inaugural Cap City Beer Fest, which is being held downtown Saturday to benefit the Companion Animal Alliance, to move its event time up two hours.
Meanwhile, Baton Rouge hoteliers got a boost in bookings from the game change during a weekend that was already shaping up to be strong due to the 2015 OLOL Children’s Hospital United Cup youth soccer tournament, which is also drawing approximately 200 teams and thousands of players, parents and fans to the city.
Looking ahead to next week, the Metro Council will introduce a new measure at its meeting Wednesday to establish a special tax incentive district to benefit a proposed 135-room Courtyard Marriott at the corner of Third and Florida streets in downtown. In July the Metro Council rejected by a 5-4 vote a nearly identical measure.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Following the death of Vincent “Cuz” Joseph Sotile on Thursday, Baton Rouge businessmen Jack Warner, Anthony “Tad” Pizzolato and Cliff Pizzolato Sr. are vowing to see Sotile’s fledgling pasta sauce startup to fruition. Our Cousin Vinny’s Pasta Sauce had just landed a deal with Associated Grocers to have the sauce in all of the local AG grocery stores.
- Phillip LeDoux and some business partners are in the early stages of planning the Tap House in the South Sherwood Forest Boulevard space formerly occupied by Capital City Grill. They hope to have it open sometime next year.
- Magpie Café will open a second location next spring in the downtown Commerce Building, making it the first commercial tenant announced for the former office building that’s being redeveloped for residential, retail and commercial use.
- Marina’s Mexican Restaurant will reopen at a new location at 6251 Perkins Road in the space most recently occupied by Souga Pizza Restaurant. Marina’s was located at 4608 Bennington Ave. for 12 years but closed in 2014 because of sluggish sales at that location, according to owner Pierre Barousalian, who has spent the past several months scouting for a new space.
- Sommer and Chris Wadsworth, the founders of Triumph Kitchen, will later this year open a homegrown Louisiana restaurant called Gouter Restaurant on Government Street that will double as a teaching kitchen for at-risk youth.
- Developer Kevin Nguyen has purchased 19.5 acres of vacant land on Tiger Bend Road near the intersection of Antioch Road for $1.6 million, on which he plans to build a new 105-lot subdivision called Rose Gardens.
- The Baton Rouge office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will relocate to a building at 18211 E. Petroleum Dr. in the Highland Business Park as early as next spring, after the purchase of a 13,000-square-foot office building for $1.1 million.
—Steve Sanoski
