Mid City group prepares to take on FuturEBR

The Mid City Redevelopment Alliance was created by Baton Rouge General Medical Center two decades ago to improve the area around the hospital. Now that the alliance is an independent nonprofit, the staff is in the process of creating a strategic plan for the future. “One thing that we’ve decided is that we will be taking FuturEBR to heart,” says Executive Director Sam Sanders, “and looking at how we can make sure this organization is positioned to do what it can to help implement that for the Mid City region.” Sanders says the alliance is engaging residents, and part of that process is helping them understand how FuturEBR, the parish’s comprehensive master plan for land use and development, could affect Mid City. The alliance may begin to take the lead on development projects, perhaps on blighted properties for which the Redevelopment Authority has been able to obtain clear titles. Whether the organization will build up its own staff, or contract with outside parties as needed, hasn’t yet been decided; Sanders says both models can work. “There are nonprofit groups like us all over the country,” he says. “Some of them are building apartment complexes and commercial strip malls. We have to decide, is that where we want to go? Or do we just want to do a little bit more than what we’ve been doing?” —David Jacobs