A small portion: A Tennessee-based commercial real estate and net lease company has purchased excess acres of land in a Millerville Road shopping center from Minnesota-based Target Corporation, which has a store at 2001 Millerville Road. GBT Realty Corporation purchased roughly an acre of land from Target for $810,000. GBT Realty bought the property located near Interstate 12 through the limited liability company Baton Rouge (Millerville) Investment Partners LLC. A direct address for the site was not listed in documents filed with the East Baton Rouge Clerk of Court Office. A spokesperson for GBT Realty says the firm plans to release details about the purchase next week.
End of an era: The downturn in the energy sector and online shopping are being blamed for the pending closure of Pearson’s Travel World’s Lafayette store. Owner Jerry Pearson tells The Advertiser that the Lafayette store, which has been a staple in the city for 38 years, suffered significantly from the energy industry collapse and more people shopping at online retailers like Amazon. Pearson says the Lafayette store’s lease is almost up. He plans to liquidate the store, which will remain open through the end of March. As for the Baton Rouge location at 7949 Jefferson Highway, that will remain open for the time being. However, the store has seen declining sales since August, when major flooding left thousands of Baton Rouge residents needing to rebuild their homes. Read the full story.
The storm’s path: National Weather Service teams were studying scenes of severe weather damage in Louisiana and Mississippi today to determine where tornadoes struck and just how powerful they were. The Associated Press reports at least four confirmed tornadoes hit Louisiana and one hit Mississippi on Tuesday, meteorologists say. There may have been more still in Louisiana, but it could take several days to find the evidence, NWS meteorologist Christopher Bannan says. The Louisiana tornadoes destroyed homes and businesses on Tuesday, flipped cars and trucks and left thousands without power, but no deaths were reported, according to Gov. John Bel Edwards. Read the full story.
