Several former top executives of The Shaw Group announced this week they’re heading up a new pipe fabrication company—Epic Piping—that plans to invest $45.3 million to develop a manufacturing and production facility on a 70-acre site in Livingston Parish.
The site, in Satsuma near the intersection of Interstate 12 and La. 63, is projected to employ more than 500 people over the next several years and will include 200,000-square-foot headquarters building, according to the company and elected officials who cheered the investment at a press event this week.
Bernhard Capital Partners—the private equity firm created two years ago by Jim Bernhard, who retired in 2013 when The Shaw Group, which he founded and served as CEO, was acquired by CB&I—is a major investor in Epic Piping as well as the company’s investment adviser. It is unclear what level of ownership BCP has in the company and whether Jim Bernhard will be a member of its board of directors.
Though Bernhard attended the announcement event this week, Epic executives were anxious to deflect attention away from their Shaw Group lineage. Instead, they are trying to focus on the investment in Livingston Parish and the jobs they say the company will bring to the area.
Also this week, in the the wake of concern over plans unveiled for the former Entergy site at 1509 Government St., several members of the Metro Council met Wednesday with Gwen Hamilton, the interim president and CEO of the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority. While Council Member Tara Wicker describes the meeting as cordial, little was resolved over concerns of Wicker and other council members that the proposal does not include affordable housing.
What’s more, Wicker says the four council members will vote to deny giving the RDA any additional adjudicated properties for redevelopment, which is one of the functions of the agency. Over the past several years, the council has transferred more than 100 vacant lots to the RDA.
Read the Daily Report Week in Review for a full recap of this week’s top stories.
