Aside from the high drama at the Capitol this week as lawmakers continue to work to fill an estimated $1.6 billion budget hole for the coming fiscal year, a number of large developments were announced this week in Baton Rouge.
Among them, Birmingham, Alabama-based Capstone Collegiate Companies is planning to develop a 179-unit student housing complex on Ben Hur Road following the company’s purchase of about 20 acres for $7,028,000. Arlington Townhomes and Manors would be located just down the road from The Cottages, a 382-unit, 1,290-bed student housing complex at the corner of Ben Hur and Nicholson Drive that Capstone also developed.
“It will have some similarities to The Cottages,” says principal Rob Howland, who noted that Capstone sold The Cottages about a month after that complex was completed in August 2011. “We’re looking to have this development ready for August of 2016.”
Also, after nearly a decade of planning, developers in Central are moving forward with plans for a planned unit development that will be located on a 457-acre site that fronts on Wax Road.
As envisioned, the still-unnamed PUD will include a 70-acre lifestyle center with high-end retailers, a gourmet grocery store and—it is hoped—a YMCA branch, according to Blake Seguin, who is developing the project with partners Ryan Jumonville and Todd McClure.
“We’re in talks with high-end gourmet supermarkets and hope to have a deal inked with YMCA in a couple of weeks,” Seguin says. “It’s going to be like a Town Centre but without the big box stores, only boutiques.”
Meanwhile, a Mississippi-based company has plans for an upscale senior living development on 8.5 acres within The Grove, Richard Carmouche’s planned unit development located just off Interstate 10 behind the Mall of Louisiana.
The Blake at The Grove, as the development will be called, will consist of 213 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care. It also will include a community center, pool and fitness center, and maintenance building with associated parking. Cardinal Ventures of Richland is developing the project and filed a final development plan this week with the Planning Commission.
Here’s a rundown of other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- When it comes to aggressively competing to retain existing business and lure new ones to the state, Louisiana was the second-best state in the U.S. last year, trailing only North Carolina and just by a nose. That’s according to a new ranking of competitiveness by Site Selection magazine, an industry trade publication, released this week.
- Rising to its highest position ever on the ranking, Louisiana jumped two spots to No. 7 on Chief Executive magazine’s annual ranking of the “Best & Worst States for Business,” released this week. Since 2008, Louisiana Economic Development says no other state has climbed as much as Louisiana in the rankings, rising 40 spots over the past seven years.
- Employees who work in loud environments and suffer gradual hearing loss as a result of their workplace environment cannot sue their employers for their injuries, according to a ruling this week by the Louisiana Supreme Court. That’s because gradual hearing loss claims are covered under the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act, the high court stated. The ruling is a landmark decision on what may appear to be an obscure issue. But it’s actually very significant for industry, as thousands of plaintiffs have sued their employers in dozens of hearing-loss cases that are pending throughout the state.
- Lawmakers will consider next week a proposal by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration to sell the Capital Park Welcome Center at 702 River Road and a parking lot across the street from the center, which would be closed following the sale. The 4,242-square-foot welcome center—which includes a theater space, meeting space and a patio with room for up to 600 people—has been appraised at a value of $7.34 million. A parking garage across the street has been appraised at $4.05 million.
- The Metro Council next week will take up the appointment of an interim director of the Baton Rouge Film Commission following the resignation of Liza Kelso, who is leaving the agency after leading it since September 2012 to take a job in the private sector. News of Kelso’s resignation became public this week when a Metro Council agenda item request was released by Mayor Kip Holden; in the item, the mayor asks the council to OK the hiring of Elizabeth Hutchinson to lead the film commission on an interim basis.
- Speaking to the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge this week, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said that the U.S. economy’s sluggish performance in the first quarter was probably an aberration and not indicative of a long-term trend. Still, Lockhart said he wants to see more evidence that the economy is getting back on track before deciding whether to recommend an interest rate hike.
- As Baton Rouge real estate agents move into what traditionally is the strongest sales season of the year, they’re doing so with the wind at their backs. According to the latest monthly sales report from the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors, sales in the eight-parish Capital Region surged 15% in March over sales from the like month last year, which helped make the first quarter the most active in recent years.
- Louisiana’s roughly 6,000 Dow Chemical employees—nearly half of whom work at the company’s 1,500-acre facility in Plaquemine—don’t know yet how 3% worldwide layoffs announced this week will affect them. A spokeswoman with the company’s corporate communications division says the layoffs will be implemented over the next two years, and that employees will be given more information on the situation “when it impacts them, if at all.”
—Steve Sanoski
