On the waterfront: A new rendering of the $22 million, 33,000-square-foot building that is to be constructed on the Mississippi River for The Water Institute of the Gulf has been released, with stakeholders saying it is sure to become an iconic building on Baton Rouge’s riverfront skyline. The building, which will be a part of The Water Campus development and will serve as the The Water Institute of the Gulf’s Headquarters, Research and Interpretive Center, will get under construction this year and is expected to be completed in July 2017. “This building will be a world-class facility that Louisiana will be proud of,” says Chip Groat, president and CEO of The Water Institute, in a prepared statement. See the rendering, which was completed by Coleman Partners Architects and Perkins+Will.
Ready to roll: The storage facility on 8415 Greenwell Springs Road recently purchased by an Arizona-based real estate company will become a U-Haul storage facility with that will offer trucks available for rental. According to Pat Allen, the marketing company president with U-Haul Co. of Louisiana, the rental trucks should be available by Thursday. AMERCO Real Estate Co., the parent company of U-Haul, purchased the 452-unit facility for $2.4 million about two weeks ago from M/MD Group VIII LLC. It is unclear if renovations will be made to the building, but a U-Haul spokesman says the company generally makes all necessary upgrades when they take over an existing storage facility.
Temporary graying: If you pass by the iconic Fleur de Lis Pizza building at 5655 Government St. and notice its infamous pink façade has been replaced with a drab gray color, worry not. Owner Pam Rushing says they are putting a new layer of stucco on the building and then repainting the exterior. Rushing says she will keep the pizza parlour pink, adding she may go with a “lighter Pepto Bismol” than the last shade. The stucco replacement is part of a renovation project that include new gutters and a new coat of pink paint on the inside that may happen later this year. “We try not to change anything when we fix something because that’s what our customers like,” Rushing says.
