In business: Massachusetts-based national uniform supplier UniFirst Corp. will unveil its new 65,000-square-foot laundry plant at 1550 Oak Villa Blvd, near Cortana Mall, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The plant is the company’s first processing facility in Louisiana, though it has had a presence in the Baton Rouge market for years. The facility officially began operations on May 15. UniFirst purchased 6.2 acres near Sam’s Club and Cortana Mall in August 2013. Construction of the facility cost $6 million. UniFirst manufactures its own branded workwear protective clothing, and floor-care products, and outfits more than 1.5 million workers each business day.
Help is on the way: State health officials tell The Associated Press that Louisiana has received a $19.5 million federal grant to help communities that are still recovering from devastating floods this past spring. The Disaster Case Management grant is from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and will fund work for about 1,575 families in 36 parishes including Ascension and Livingston. Disaster Case Management allows a qualified individual to serve as a single point of contact for individuals or families impacted by flooding. The person helps households identify unmet needs and make referrals to appropriate agencies. The funding will be allocated among nonprofit organizations that will train and administer case managers including Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, Easter Seals Louisiana, Upbring Disaster Response, ICNA Relief USA, Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Volunteers of America North Louisiana.
Holding more: The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port announced this week the completion of the three above-ground storage tanks at its Clovelly Hub near Galliano, The Courier reports. The completion of the new tanks adds capacity of more than 1.1 million barrels of crude oil to the nation’s only deepwater oil port, the company says. Four more tanks will be constructed by next April, further increasing capacity by 2.5 million barrels through the more than $75 million project. In 2014, the hub received, stored and distributed more domestic crude oil than foreign for the first time in 23 years and that effort continues, says LOOP Public Information Director Terry Coleman. The three new tanks join 15 other tanks and bring total capacity of above-ground storage to 10.1 million barrels. There is a 60 million-barrel underground capacity. Read the full story.
