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.
Here’s a rundown of other top local stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- The LSU College of Engineering’s $110 million expansion/renovation of Patrick F. Taylor Hall is running behind schedule, after contract negotiations between the state and the project’s originally selected construction manager—a joint venture of global construction giant Skanska and locally owned MAPP Construction—fell through.
- While the state’s austere budget climate is prompting the LSU athletics department to delay construction on a $12 million nutrition center for student-athletes, the LSU Foundation is moving forward with plans to build a new $10.5 million headquarters on Nicholson Drive.
- With announcements of 38 new or expanded facilities, Baton Rouge tied with Dayton, Ohio, as the nation’s No. 2 city with a population of between 200,000 and 1 million for the most project announcements in 2014, according to trade magazine Site Selection’s annual Governor’s Cup awards. Meanwhile, with 200 announcements of such projects—either involving $1 million in investment, creation of 20 or more jobs or 20,000 square feet or more of new construction—Louisiana’s ranking rose two spots to No. 9 nationally.
- A new analysis of Brookings Institution data by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber shows Baton Rouge is among 18 of the nation’s top 20 performing metro areas whose economies are being negatively impacted merely by the proposal of stricter air quality standards for ozone emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Plans for the next phase of the Rouzan Traditional Neighborhood Development, as well as those for a new building for Performance Contractors, a new Hilton hotel and a new single-family subdivision, are among applications submitted to the Planning Commission for approval at the commission’s April 20 meeting.
- Fourteen LSU System faculty members have been awarded competitive grants of up to $50,000 through the second phase of the university’s LIFT2 grant program to help bring their research and inventions to market.
- An independent audit of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge released by the state Legislative Auditor’s Office identifies problems with a lack of documentation over how the organization spent certain grant money.
- To accommodate rapid growth, Walk-On’s Catering is expanding its catering kitchen and facility in Port Allen. A total of 1,600 square feet of covered space is being added to the exterior of the facility at 2012 Forest Drive to make room for a crawfish grader, as well as increased space for cooking and deliveries. Another 1,400 square feet is being added inside as additional daily cooking space.
- Baton Rouge-based Central Bidding has landed a contract with the Louisiana Association of General Contractors to bring the bidding process for the association’s nearly 800 members into the modern age.
- RaceTrac is continuing its expansion in the Baton Rouge market, with the $960,000 acquisition of two adjacent parcels totaling roughly 60,000 square feet at 1683 O’Neal Lane. The land is in the parking lot in front of the Hobby Lobby store.
- In the wake of the recent death of Leonard Nimoy, who famously portrayed Spock on Star Trek, Baton Rouge’s lone comic book store, Louisiana Double Play, has pretty much sold out of all Nimoy and Star Trek related memorabilia.
- It’s not often you see a business operating under two names from a single building, but that appears to be the case with the Chinese Combo King restaurant on West Chimes Street, where a banner sign for “Little Saigon II” has appeared just below the permanent sign for the Chinese restaurant. And the building’s owner says it’s possible both signs will remain for the foreseeable future.
- A pair of software development firms—one aiming to launch a new social media app to bring community ideas to fruition, and the other focused on developing software for the seafood industry—have joined the Louisiana Technology Park on Florida Boulevard. ClearBlue Design and Blue Fin Data are now part of the tech park’s incubator program.
- Roughly 10 months after announcing it would replace the since-closed Hi Nabor grocery store in the Drusilla Village Shopping Center, LeBlanc’s Food Stores is putting the final touches on its renovation and expansion there and preparing for an opening on Tuesday, March 31.
- Developer Kevin Nguyen is beginning construction on the second phase of Siegen Place, his retail center at 6555 Siegen Lane, and has confirmed leases with two new tenants. One, Firehouse Subs, will be opening its second location in the local market. The other is Dallas-based chain Cowboy Chicken, which will open its first Baton Rouge restaurant in the development.
- Though it is unclear what will be done with the land, a 1.1-acre tract at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport has been sold to a Winnsboro couple for $481,170, according to records filed with the East Baton Rouge clerk of court.
