IBM’s decision to open an 800-job technology center in downtown Baton Rouge that will provide software development, maintenance and integration services to the blue-chip computer company’s clients around the world is a game changer for LSU, Baton Rouge and the state. So says Gov. Bobby Jindal, who announced the deal at a press conference this afternoon surrounded by nearly three dozen elected officials, LSU brass, IBM executives and Baton Rouge Area Foundation officials.
“This is a game changer that will have a generational impact on Baton Rouge and our entire state,” Jindal says. “It is truly transformative.”
That’s not only because the computer company will bring new, well-paying, tech-sector jobs to the area, but because the linchpin in the deal to attract IBM here was a commitment from the state to fund an expansion of LSU’s engineering and computer science programs, which will provide a well-trained workforce of recent graduates to the center.
“This is really a game changer on three levels,” says LED Secretary Stephen Moret, who helped lead the nearly two-year effort to land the IBM deal. “A company of this caliber is a huge deal but to have as part of that a dramatic expansion of the LSU computer science program will help us attract other companies to the area.”
The deal is also significant because the state, the city and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation are building for IBM a new mixed-use office complex on River Road downtown. The facility, which will be developed by BRAF’s for-profit real estate company, Commercial Properties, will include an 11-story office tower and a separate, 11-story residential tower with 95 residential units. “To have a development like this on the riverfront is a huge milestone in the redevelopment of downtown and a huge catalyst for other projects,” says Moret.
IBM Services Center: Baton Rouge, as the local facility will be known, will lease temporary space in Essen Center on Essen Lane, just south of Interstate 10, and will begin hiring immediately. The company is expected to have 300 workers in place by 2014 and 500 or more by the time the new office tower is completed in the spring of 2015.
Baton Rouge Area Chamber president and CEO Adam Knapp says the deal is significant because it represents the fruits of years’ worth of work to develop the local economy beyond the petrochemical industry. “For years we have been known only for engineering and processing technology,” Knapp says. “This moves us in a different direction, which is something we have been working on for a long time.”
LSU officials say the deal will propel the College of Engineering and Computer Science into the top 15 in the nation in terms of the number of computer science graduates.
And DDD Executive Director Davis Rhorer says it is the tipping point for a downtown already in the midst of a renaissance. “I’m ecstatic,” he says. “To have a real, live, mixed-use development downtown—the impact is tenfold.” —Stephanie Riegel
