Amid mounting public concern over a proposed barge cleaning facility on the Mississippi River near LSU’s intramural fields and BREC’s Farr Park Equestrian Center, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality this morning agreed to delay until Aug. 18 a public hearing on the project that was originally scheduled for next week.
The announcement by DEQ came a day after Daily Report broke news that Mayor Kip Holden and LSU President F. King Alexander requested the delay, joining the chorus of environmental activists and those who live near the site of the proposed facility who are concerned about the health hazards it poses.
The barge cleaning facility is being proposed by Port Arthur, Texas-based Tubal-Cain Marine Service and would include a dockside mooring area, two working deck barges with 10 mounted 15,000-gallon storage tanks, as well as a steam boiler, transfer pumps and piping, a truck loading station and enclosed flare.
Also this week, the fate of a proposed tax increment financing district to help fund construction of the Courtyard Marriott planned for the intersection of Third and Florida streets was thrown into question by an email made public by Daily Report.
The email, which was circulated among Metro Council members, questions the viability of the downtown hotel market and is written by the very developer seeking the TIF for the Courtyard Marriott—Bo Aughtry of Windsor Aughtry Hotel Group.
Aughtry sent the email in March to local developer Mike Wampold, who is developing a competing Marriott Autograph hotel down the street from the planned Courtyard site. At the time, the developers were vying to be the first to get their projects off the ground.
In the correspondence, Aughtry asks Wampold to “re-examine alternatives—or even delay development—as, I believe we will all be damaged with added room supply in a market that already suffers.”
The email goes on to say that “the downtown Baton Rouge market remains quite soft, with the Hilton offering $96-$99 rates to all large accounts—incredible. Nobody in this sub market will finish at 70% (occupancy) this year … It is simply a very difficult lodging environment.”
Metro Councilman John Delgado, who remains undecided on the latest TIF, says the email raises serious concerns among some council members as to “whether or not we need to basically subsidize one hotel to the detriment of the existing hotels.”
Meanwhile, a Baton Rouge judge dealt yet another blow to supporters of the St. George incorporation movement this week, when he threw out on a technicality a lawsuit filed by leaders of the incorporation movement against parish Registrar of Voters Steve Raborn.
Here’s a rundown of other top local stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- With contract talks scheduled to resume next week between leaders of the Capital Area Transit System employees union and the bus system’s administration, CATS board chair Donna Collins-Lewis says she has asked CATS CEO Bob Mirabito to bring in a conflict resolution expert to meet with all the system’s employees in hopes of easing ongoing tension.
- A group of investors led by Mo Vij, the founder of local IT company General Informatics, has acquired an 8.5-acre tract of vacant land at the intersection of Highland Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard for $3.6 million, with plans to develop an office and commercial complex on the site that will be modeled after the campus-style settings of high-tech giants like Microsoft and Apple.
- David Rubin, a shareholder in the Baton Rouge firm Kantrow Spaht Weaver & Blitzer, has been appointed as the trustee in the Thinkstream bankruptcy case, which a judge on Thursday converted to a voluntary Chapter 11 proceeding. Read more about Thinkstream’s financial challenges in the new Business Report cover story, “Troubled Empire.”
- Led by $4.1 billion worth of chemical exports, the total worth of all exports from the Baton Rouge metro area increased by $1.3 billion last year to $7.5 billion. That’s a 20.3% increase, and it made the Baton Rouge area the 42nd largest metro area exporter in the nation by total export value, according to new figures released this week by the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration.
- Two downtown historic renovation projects—440 on Third and the Dupree Apartments at 607 and 609 Spanish Town Road—will be among those recognized later this month by the Foundation for Historical Louisiana at the organization’s annual Preservation Awards program.
- Now that “The Louisiana Chemical Corridor”—which includes roughly 25 south Louisiana parishes stretching from Lake Charles to Baton Rouge and down to New Orleans—has been recognized with a federal Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership designation, the real work begins. That’s according to Jonathan Shi, an LSU professor in the construction management department of the LSU College of Engineering, which is leading a coalition of 83 companies, government agencies and industry association partners that lobbied for the designation, which opens the door to millions in potential federal funding.
- Bernhard Capital Partners has partnered with Houston-based energy services giant KBR Inc. to create a new Baton Rouge-based subsidiary company that will focus on the downstream, refining, petrochemical, chemical and manufacturing industries. The new company will be called Brown & Root Industrial Services, re-establishing the name of a corporate powerhouse that for decades was one of the country’s leading industrial services providers.
- A defamation lawsuit filed against Mayor Pro Tem and Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe and the city-parish by former Parish Attorney Mary Roper will not go forward. Nineteenth Judicial District Judge Tim Kelley this week threw out the defamation suit, issuing a ruling from the bench after a brief hearing.
- The Visit Baton Rouge board of directors at a special meeting this week formally accepted a $65,000 payment from BP for damages from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and released all claims against the company.
- Amid a national push for increased programs in STEM education, The Walls Project is launching a new program for north Baton Rouge and Mid City high school students this summer with a focus on building careers in the arts.
—Steve Sanoski
