Editor’s Note: This story has been revised from an earlier version to include comments from BREC’s administration.
The Baton Rouge North Economic Development District is expected tonight to wade into the controversy over the future location of the BREC Baton Rouge Zoo.
The BRNEDD board, at its regular monthly meeting, is scheduled to receive a report—prepared by the agency’s deputy director, Woodrow Muhammad—on the zoo’s economic impact on north Baton Rouge.
BRNEDD board chairman Ron Smith says he has not yet seen the report, but he has been told it details the positive effect the Baker-based zoo has had on the economy of north Baton Rouge. It also underscores why relocating the zoo to the southeast portion of the parish, as BREC’s administration desires, would be detrimental.
“The zoo is very important to us and we’re trying to give as much information to our board and to the community as possible so everybody can fully understand what the implications of moving the zoo are,” Smith says.
Though the report has not yet been publicly released, BREC administrators have reviewed a draft copy of it and already are raising red flags. At a BREC Board of Commissioners meeting on Feb. 22, Corey Wilson, head of BREC’s management and business services, said the staff has “significant concerns about some of the information” in the study, according to minutes from the meeting.
BREC officials say they have several problems with the study, which estimates the economic impact of the zoo to be $28 million on the seven-ZIP code area of north Baton Rouge. BREC, by comparison, estimates the zoo’s impact to be $23 million on the entire nine-parish Capital Region.
BREC Spokeswoman Cheryl Michelet says the study incorrectly utilizes data provided by BREC, incorrectly says all zoo employees live in the seven-ZIP code north Baton Rouge sample area and incorrectly asserts all zoo supplies are purchased from within that same area. The study also fails to measure the impact a renovated Greenwood Park in Baker would have on surrounding property values. She says BREC has asked LSU’s Economic Research Policy Group to review the results of the study.
“We have requested an outside review to ensure that any economic numbers used regarding this project are thoroughly researched and as accurate as possible,” Michelet says. “It is too important to the community to do otherwise.”
Though BREC challenges the study’s accuracy, the BRNEDD plans to use the information to take an official position on the zoo move, likely against, as soon as it hears the presentation tonight, Smith says.
“We will dive into it and then probably take an official position,” he says.
The relocation of the zoo has become a hot-button issue in the community. BREC’s administration favors moving it to what they say is the more commercially viable southeast quadrant of the parish. The prime relocation target is BREC’s own Airline Highway Park, better known as the Fairgrounds—even though parts of the Fairgrounds flooded badly in August 2016.
Opponents of the move say the zoo’s problem is not its location but BREC’s lack of investment in the aging attraction, arguing the move would be yet another blow to economically-troubled north Baton Rouge.
The BREC commission will take up the issue later this month.
The BRNEDD meeting is at 6 p.m. at LSU Health Baton Rouge North Clinic Urgent Care, 5439 Airline Hwy.
