A group of local investors has purchased the Town South Shopping Center at 1919 Staring Lane for $3.12 million with plans to spend the next few months transforming and rebranding the retail eyesore.
Represented by Donnie Jarreau, a limited liability company named 1919 Staring Lane Property paid about $36 per square foot for the shopping center in a deal that closed Tuesday.
The seller is listed as Town South Shopping Center LLC, represented by Dr. Jasbir S. Makar.
Jarreau says the Town South Shopping Center spans 86,000 square feet across nine acres and is 50% occupied with tenants such as Citi Trends, a Dollar General and several local businesses.
And given its location near the Essen/Staring and Perkins Road intersection, the shopping center has tremendous upside, he says.
“It’s a prime location,” Jarreau says. “It’s an older center that kind of remind us of Southdowns and Drusilla that we think we can rehab and give a completely different look.”
The new owners plan to spend the next 60 to 90 days revamping the retail center, he says. They will overlay the parking lot and give the center a fresh coat of paint. They also intend to rename the shopping center to give it a new identity.
Several supermarkets and entertainment venues have already expressed interest in moving into the retail center, says Jarreau.
Town South wasn’t on the market when the investment group—which besides Jarreau includes Buck Gladden, Andrew and Shannon Smith, Jimmy Nunnally—approached the prior owner of 20 years about purchasing it.
Jarreau says he has sought ownership of the property for more than five years, working through Chris Gremillion, of NAI/Latter & Blum, to buy it. But the prior owner, he says, seemed more open to selling Town South after the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board’s lease there ended this summer.
The school board had in 2013 leased two suites in the center to house Valley Park students so the alternative school could serve as temporary site for Lee High, which, at the time, was being rebuilt.
—Alexandria Burris
