There was skepticism, if not downright hostility—at least in some segments of the community—to the master plan for revitalizing Plank Road unveiled earlier this month by Build Baton Rouge, the city-parish redevelopment authority.
Build Baton Rouge President and CEO Chris Tyson would argue there are many reasons for fixing up Plank Road but he also believes there’s a simple economic argument to be made:
“There is a connection between our inability to land big corporate deals and Plank Road,” Tyson says. “You can’t just bomb it and kick everybody out. You have to roll up your sleeves and dig in and do things that people in other progressive, growing communities are doing. That’s how you attract employers.”
A key component of the plan for Plank Road is the development of a new bus rapid transit line that will run down Plank Road and eventually connect to Nicholson Drive near LSU.
Just days after unveiling the plan, the city-parish announced it had been awarded $15 million in federal funds for the express route, which, when added to $17 million already committed locally, will enable the project to move forward.
But there’s another reason to be enthusiastic about the plan: It’s built around a bunch of blighted properties—85 adjudicated parcels, to be specific—that the Metro Council transferred to Build Baton Rouge in 2018. Since then, the agency has been quietly clearing title to those and other adjacent properties. It also secured an $860,000 line of credit from the Capital Area Finance Authority to begin redeveloping the properties. Read the full story from the Nov. 19 edition of Business Report, for more about the significance of the Plank Road plan
