Commercial Properties Realty Trust, which is developing the 27.6-acre Water Campus for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, will hold a “topping off” ceremony at the campus later this afternoon, at which dignitaries will place the last beam atop The Water Institute of the Gulf’s new riverfront headquarters.
The building, which is expected to be an iconic structure for the $60 million Water Campus and the city, is located on the site of the old municipal dock and extends out into the MIssissippi River. It is the third building of the emerging research park to take shape, and is expected to be completed in December.
Two other structures on the campus—the $9 million Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority headquarters and the $16 million building that will house the LSU Center for River Studies—were completed in 2016. The CPRA moved into its new digs last August. LSU is expected to move into its building later this spring, after the assembly of a 90-by-120-foot scaled model of the Mississippi River is complete.
Meanwhile, plans are taking shape for a three-story parking garage, as well as a new 86,000-square-foot office building that is available for pre-lease.
Real estate broker Bennett Davis of New Orleans-based Corporate Realty is advertising three spaces in the building of some 20,000 square feet each on the Louisiana Commercial Database. The annual gross lease rate is $32 per square foot.
“Hopefully in the next 60 to 90 days we’ll be able to make an announcement about some tenants,” Davis says.
It’s not unusual to pre-lease a building or get letters of intent from tenants before beginning construction, says Commercial Properties spokeswoman Tina Rance, who declines to comment on potential tenants for the spaces.
But she suggests other buildings besides the 86,000-square-foot office building are in the works.
“We have other buildings that potential tenants are looking at as well,” she says. “Some are mixed use; some are not. We hope to break ground on another building by year’s end.”
—Stephanie Riegel
