While the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across Louisiana and the nation, several projects in downtown Baton Rouge are moving forward.
The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry has moved into its new headquarters at 5th and Main streets, President and CEO Stephen Waguespack announced at this morning’s Downtown Development District Board of Directors meeting—the first in-person meeting for the DDD since the pandemic broke out earlier this spring. LABI acquired the building and land for $2.7 million in July 2017 from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s real estate company, Commercial Properties Realty Trust, and began renovating the property last year.
While staff has already moved in, Waguespack says a ribbon cutting for the building won’t be held until September after the last 5% to 10% of remaining tasks on the punch list is completed. The building has several conference rooms as well as a downstairs cafe area to be used by LABI’s partners.
“We expect it to be a living, breathing building in the day,” Waguespack says.
The Louisiana Board of Realtors is also planning to move into a new headquarters on Main Street. Construction is underway for a three-story building at 861 Main Street, next door and across Priscilla Lane from the organization’s current offices. The new headquarters will feature 9,000 square feet of office space and a roughly 5,000-square-foot conference room.
In Beauregard Town, a construction job site fence has been set up around the perimeter of the Triangle Building on St. Ferdinand Street, set to be the new home of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. The building, roughly twice the size of the council’s longtime home at 427 Laurel St., will include a community art space, recording studio, rehearsal spaces, artist workshops and gallery. Officials expect the site renovation to take 10 months.
Gary Black, with Wampold Companies, also attended the meeting to share conceptual renderings for Mike Wampold’s Chase South Tower with the board of supervisors. The building, acquired by Wampold in 2017, will be renovated for commercial offices and residential apartments. Some 144 residential units are planned for the project, along with an 8,000-square-foot pool area on the penthouse level and a 4,000-square-foot retail space at the ground level. See the plans here.
The project’s site plan was submitted earlier this month to the city-parish Planning Department and will be considered by the Planning Commission in August.
Some 20 residential lofts are expected to come online this fall at the Water Campus as work continues at 200 Water Street, the development’s residential component. The campus’s main square, next to the residential building, is also under construction and is expected to be completed in September.
