Welcome to downtown: Regions Bank and Phelps Dunbar will start moving into the II City Plaza office building this month, and the building should soon be half occupied. Mike Wampold, who is developing the 260,000-square-foot building, says he’s working on a couple of more leases. If those deals go through — and Wampold says he should know in the next month or so — then II City Plaza will be about 80% occupied.
Building gets buyer: A two-story office building at North Boulevard and Beck Street has been sold for $800,000. A group called 4336 North Boulevard Holdings bought the 13,750-square-foot building in a deal filed Friday. International Billing Services, which occupied much of the second floor, sold the building. Benjamin Stalter of Maestri Murrell Real Estate, which represented the buyer, says the new owners see the Mid City area as having “good upside.”
Raise it: During the span of two weeks, the number of individuals signing an online petition to raise Louisiana’s homestead exemption has doubled to more than 44,600 names. Joshua Kahler, a New Orleans Realtor, launched PetitionOnline because he says the benefits of the homestead exemption and the need to increase it for inflation have never been more important. “Homeowner taxes continue to increase as property values increase while the amount of the exemption remains fixed at 1982 property value levels,” he says. Kahler wants to increase the exemption to $160,000. Currently, Louisiana residents are not taxed on the first $75,000 of a home’s value.
