North Baton Rouge residents could see new economic development projects for the area announced in the next few weeks after voters on Saturday approved a dedicated tax to help fund a development district for the long-neglected area.
Voters green-lighted a 2% hotel occupancy tax that will apply to hotels in the Baton Rouge North Economic Development District, which is roughly bordered by Harding Boulevard to the north, Florida Boulevard to the south, North Sherwood Forest Drive to the east and Scenic Highway on the west. Only a handful of hotels are located in the district.
The district, created by the Legislature in in 2015, aims to bring long-needed investment like new grocery stores, retailers and housing development to the area, in line with a city-parish move earlier this year to lure similar investments.
Rinaldi Jacobs, a businessman who is helping to spearhead the development district, says residents can expect new projects in north Baton Rouge to be announced in the next two to three weeks after the tax passed with 55% of the vote. It’s unclear what specific projects the development district will roll out, but discussions are underway.
Jacobs says meetings have been taking place for months between the development district, Louisiana Economic Development, which handles tax incentives for the state, Southern University and other government agencies to develop a plan for north Baton Rouge.
The Metro Council earlier this year approved an economic opportunity zone—overriding Mayor Kip Holden’s veto in the process—to give property tax abatements to developers investing in north Baton Rouge.
Rinaldi says the new economic development district will help businesses identify and obtain incentives like that one to encourage investment in the area. The board for the district will begin holding public meetings in January. Starting in February, hotels in north Baton Rouge will collect a 2% occupancy tax, which is expected to generate $261,000 annually for the district.
The funds generated, Rinaldi says, will go toward leveraging private, philanthropic and federal dollars, which will be spent on efforts to help identify existing incentives for businesses to invest in north Baton Rouge. Rinaldi compared the north Baton Rouge district to the Downtown Development District, which has spearheaded downtown’s revitalization.
“Downtown Development District handles that for downtown,” he says, “but if you want to invest in north Baton Rouge, who do you call?”
State Sen. Regina Barrow, who led the proposal in the state Legislature to create the district, says the area has been neglected for decades and desperately needs grocery stores and housing development.
“Now we have the opportunity to bring a whole host of businesses that will be advantageous to the community and the businesses themselves,” Barrow says.
Three other tax proposals in the city-parish failed to pass during Saturday’s runoff election, including a broader 2% hotel occupancy tax on most other hotels in the parish that would have sent money to the Raising Cane’s River Center and Visit Baton Rouge.
Ben Blackwell, general manager of the downtown Hampton Inn & Suites and president of the Baton Rouge Lodging Association, which supported the tax, says the benefits from the tourism attractions the money would have been spent on outweighed the tax on hotels.
But even though a handful of hotels in north Baton Rouge will now be taxed more than others in the parish, he does not expect it to put them at a competitive disadvantage, given the tax’s relatively small amount.
Proponents of a new mental health facility called The Bridge Center for Hope, meanwhile, are going back to the drawing board after voters rejected a dedicated property tax to fund the facility.
—Sam Karlin
