Mid City

[richyb83]

Thought this unique area of BR deserved it's own thread. It has been nice to see all the activity in and around Mid City the past few years! The ever growing BRCC has really enjected life into the area! And new major revitalization projects like the new BREC HQ's on Florida Blvd; new Bonne Carre/La Technology Park on the finges of Mid City. And much more smaller things happening like a music office co-op; the area still has a ways to go; but it slowly but surely seems to be thriving once again.

A sort of Arts & Design District has already emerged; now the term "Cultural" wants to be added too..don't understand it all; but it sounds like a step in the right direction. Mid City boundries is roughly defined Government Street corridor from South 14th Street to Jefferson Highway, and from Claycut Road to the south to Florida Boulevard to the north.

Art, culture districts eyed

The Mid City Redevelopment Alliance held its first meeting to begin discussing the initiative, which would draw up boundaries in which original works of art sold would be exempt from state sales taxes and tax credits would be available for the renovation of owner-occupied or revenue-generating historic buildings.

[cajun]

Yeah....I'm starting to think that if you can't get more people to live and work in mid city, then Baton Rouge is going to have problems.

More investment is needed in this area- badly.

[richyb83]

*Question from BR Growth & Development thread

What happened to the development on Government/Acadian?

Yeah....I'm starting to think that if you can't get more people to live and work in mid city, then Baton Rouge is going to have problems.

More investment is needed in this area- badly.

That's the Westmoreland Shopping Center; plans for a nice mixed development fell thru; haven't heard anything lately. This could be the catalyst that sets Mid City off! This financial crisis can't be helping very much.

Here's the most recent news from back on October 21st of 08'.

http://www.businessreport.com/news/2008/oc...l-be-developed/

This is old info from way back in Aug of 07' on a special taxing district?...Scroll down to Mid City Planning; to Westmoreland

http://130.39.84.140/btca/PDF/Mid-City_August07.pdf

*Nearly 10 acres

[nquint1]

I posted about this in the Acadian Village thread, but Cornerstone Glass has moved to the corner of N. Ardenwood and Florida. That whole shopping center is getting a much needed makeover. The progress has been really slow, but once it's done that area should look much better with BREC's hq across the street.

[richyb83]

^Thanks nquint1

More good news; the expanding west-end anchor of Mid City along Government Street! And a new elementary school across the street.

Circa 1857 buys land for future expansion; restaurant growing

Circa 1857, the Mid City art and antique store, has purchased some property nearby for a future expansion. The business had been using the land as parking for special events, such as White Light Night. One part of Circa that will be expanding soon is Yvette Marie's Caf

Edited March 18, 2009 by richyb83

[richyb83]

Price cut on Westmoreland Shopping Center

The price on the Westmoreland Shopping Center has been reduced to $5.5 million, after several attempts to redevelop the Mid City site have fallen through. Mark Hebert of Kurz & Hebert Commercial Real Estate posted the new price on the nine-acre shopping center last week. Marion Cangelosi, who owns the center at the corner of Government Street and Acadian Thruway, had been asking for $6 million. There had been talk the high price was deterring development. The latest deal to rejuvenate Westmoreland fell through in October, when a Cleveland developer dropped plans to build a grocery store and retail center on the site.

http://www.businessreport.com/archives/rea...-weekly/latest/

[richyb83]

Nice to see this historic school get a modern face-lift!

Dufrocq School renovation almost finished

A mix of old and new is emerging on the corner of Government and South 19th streets.

Dufrocq Elementary, built in 1920, where the children are known as Ducks, has spent the past two years undergoing a $20 million renovation and expansion. The teachers and students have spent that time a few miles away in another old school building, one slated to be torn down.

The designers on the Dufrocq project have taken pains to have the new mirror, or at least echo, the old.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/43756277.html

[richyb83]

I'm really not the artsy-type; but figured this sucessful event was worth the mention. My mom has had/will have her work in one of the galleries. The live bands outside in the Goodwood Village shopping center make it more vibrant...

Hot Art, Cool Nights returns to Mid City

The Hot Art, Cool Nights is expected to bring thousands Friday night to Mid City. Browse original paintings, sculptures, photography and hand-crafted jewelry as live music and the smell of great food linger in the air. Shuttling service is available in the area stretching from South 14th Street to Jefferson Highway and from Claycut Road to Florida Boulevard. The event, which is from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., is free and open to the public.

http://www.businessreport.com/archives/daily-report/latest/

[richyb83]

Finally...suprised anchor/grocery(old Winn Dixie) stayed vacant as long as it had...this should work well next to BRCC; which has injected life into Mid City

Piggly Wiggly owner buys BR site

The owner of the Lafayette and Baton Rouge Piggly Wiggly grocery stores has bought the shopping center anchored by the former Winn-Dixie at Rebel Drive and Government Street.

Piggly Wiggly will be a little smaller than the Winn-Dixie was. It will be about 40,000 square feet, with the other 7,000 carved out for future retail tenants. The existing tenants, which are China One, Four Seasons and Check Into Cash, will remain, but Jones said another 8,000-10,000 square feet will be added behind the shopping center, which is close to Baton Rouge Community College.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/business/64058357.html

[dan326]

That's great to hear. Filling in the vacant space!

[cajun]

Wow...I kinda expected another one of those multi-uses to pop up there or maybe a BRCC expansion.

I'm kinda upset that they aren't knocking down the big box, but at the same time, I'm happy that business is back in this area. Winn Dixie wasn't, and still isn't, a very well oiled machine. I expect more stores in this region to close down.....which means more big boxes do deal with.

[richyb83]

The North Blvd overpass area has lots of potential in the western end of MidCity...just how tall are we talking about here 4 or 5-stories?? 6 or 7??

Plan announced to build housing on shuttered site

The boarded-up windows behind a padlocked fence crowned with razor wire show the former Capital City South Apartments for what they have become: one of the worst eyesores in Baton Rouge’s Midcity district. On Tuesday, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency announced plans to change all that.

A mix of for-sale properties with LHFA-financed apartments tall enough to enjoy a view of downtown and the river could create something special along the $12 million North Boulevard overpass that opened in 2006, he said.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/business/70344977.html

[byrde]

Just passed by that site today and thought that would be a great spot to bulldoze and build something new. It is a great location near downtown and should be able to attract young professionals that want to live and play near all the activity downtown.

[dan326]

Sounds interesting! It should definitely be at least 5-6+.

[richyb83]

School rehab to start in May... BR Magnet work will take 2 years

Supporters of Baton Rouge Magnet High were fighting two years ago to preserve their historic campus. Now, the 82-year-old facility is readying for a top-to-bottom renovation that will last two years. Two Baton Rouge firms, Remson Haley Herpin Architects and Chenevert Architects, have developed site and floor plans, as well as an artist’s rendering of the renovated campus and will present them to the public at a forum at 6 p.m. Monday at the high school.

* sorry for small pic...imageshack has changed format...will have to figure out later

[richyb83]

Wow! Sounds like a big deal...nice location at Mid-City's western edge...just east of downtown...I have been saying the North Blvd overpass area could support some mid-rise living...can't wait to see rendering...would post a pic of project I might like to see go there..but it would get Dan's hopes up too quick

'Iconic' project in works outside downtown

The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency wants to replace the boarded-up Capital City South Apartments on North Boulevard, at the foot of the overpass near 17th Street, into a new residential development with a community center that will “turn heads” of motorists on their way into downtown, Lisa Nice of Post Architects says. Public meetings seeking input on the project will be held Thursday and Friday at 6 p.m. in the McKinley Alumni Center. Post Architects and EOA Architects of Nashville, Tenn., are involved. The project budget is about $11 million. The existing structure would be demolished, although some of it might be recycled or reused in an effort to achieve Leadership in Environmental Design certification

http://www.businessreport.com/archives/daily-report/2010/feb/09/1459/

[dan326]

Good idea Richy! I have been prematurely excited by a few of such pictures.

I do wonder what it will look like though. It's great to see projects starting back up again!

Wow! Sounds like a big deal...nice location at Mid-City's western edge...just east of downtown...I have been saying the North Blvd overpass area could support some mid-rise living...can't wait to see rendering...would post a pic of project I might like to see go there..but it would get Dan's hopes up too quick

Edited February 10, 2010 by dan326

[buckett5425]

I went to EOA's website and stumbled across this proposal for the Westmoreland Shopping Center. Yes, it is only a proposal, but this is still some exciting "urbanist" stuff!

http://www.eoa-architects.com/westmoreland.html

[richyb83]

Yeah I saw that on the website too...a mixed-use urban-village type of project would be very nice for Westmoreland...a center-piece like development for Mid City...and the Capitol City South could serve as the western anchor..

Yeah Dan I've been running across alot of stuff I'd like for BR...just need to keep that in the Armchair Developer thread

Edited February 11, 2010 by richyb83

[cajun]

I went to EOA's website and stumbled across this proposal for the Westmoreland Shopping Center. Yes, it is only a proposal, but this is still some exciting "urbanist" stuff!

http://www.eoa-archi...stmoreland.html

That would be awesome.

Not bad considering the constraints on the property. I hope that this gets built when the lending markets ease up.

I'd kinda like to see a Houston Metro style rail transit in the center two lanes of Government street. While this is a relatively large development, I think they'll be more smaller ones along that corridor over the next decade.

[richyb83]

Can't wait to see the new building; maybe it will be in one of those adjacent empty lots??

Tulane plans $10M medical school building at the B.R. General

The clinical use of radical human genome research will be one benefit that Tulane University School of Medicine will bring to the area through its recently inked partnership with Baton Rouge General. Dr. Benjamin Sachs, dean of Tulane’s medical school, says the plan to eventually base 160 third- and fourth-year medical students in a $10 million building at the General’s Mid-City campus could give the region status as a locus of medical academics on par with Chicago, home to top 20-ranked health research programs at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, and the Bay Area, home to top 10-ranked UCSF Medical Center and Stanford University.

Sachs, who discussed the partnership with Mayor Kip Holden today in Baton Rouge, says the new Tulane building would host medical students, a nursing school and a Southern University pharmacy program and would need a $5 million endowment on top of the construction cost. Sachs says the building would include “state-of-the-art connectivity” to enable telemedicine care, which would let local specialists consult with distant patients via videoconferencing.

Although the General has had “a handful” of medical residents since 1990, Sachs says the new partnership with Tulane, along with the recent announcement that LSU will base medical grad students at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Essen Lane, will create “two major academic medical centers that will compete nicely—but that’s OK—” in the next several years and will benefit the community in “dramatic” ways

http://www.businessreport.com/news/2010/mar/08/tulane-plans-10m-medical-school-building-br-genera/

[richyb83]

Mid City department store to become permanent home for FEMA

The old Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche department store building on Main Street is undergoing a $5 million renovation to make it a long-term home for FEMA. "We're making it much more livable," says Michael McClure, chief financial officer for Affirmative Insurance Holdings, which owns the property. Affirmative acquired the 183,000-square-foot Mid City department store in 2007, when it purchased USAgencies. USAgencies had planned to move operations into the Mid City building, but last year Affirmative decided to consolidate operations in the Bon Carré Business Center. FEMA has been in the Goudchaux's/Maison Blanche building since hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "When they moved in, it was an emergency nature, so it was pretty much a shell," McClure says. "So we're prettying it up." The building will serve permanently as a recovery office for FEMA and state agencies; it will also be the location for a joint field office when a hurricane warning has been declared.

An adjoining four-story building is being marketed for office/warehouse/distribution space. Netflix already occupies part of the building, says Macon Callicott Jr. of Property One, who is handling the sales and leasing. Because of the building's closeness to downtown and its two loading docks, Callicott is marketing the site as storage space for the state or any other large organization with scattered offices

businessreport.com

[richyb83]

The boundries of Mid City... seems like they are constantly changing?? So I posted this here...lots of infil activity on the horizon..kinda of coinciding with Buckett's article...The Elysian, a 100-unit apartment building, is in the works for Spanish Town Road just outside of downtown looks impressive! Nobody around to get their panties in a wad because it's taller than 2 or 3-stories??(still venting from failed Capitol Lofts)

The four-story, 100-unit apartment complex called The Elysian on Spanish Town Road just east of Interstate 110 that would cater to mixed-income residents with rents ranging from $200 for subsidized renters to $1,000 a month on the high end. The $15 million development would have 15 one-bedroom units, 45 two-bedroom units, 40 three-bedroom units and a parking garage on two acres at North 13th Street and Spanish Town Road. Jarreau said he would donate playground equipment to BREC for the existing park across the street and that the building would have balconies and Wi-Fi-enabled courtyards, storage units and living/work space on the ground floor.

Movement in Midcity... Developers plan several projects for diverse section of Baton Rouge

Work is under way at the historic Scott School to turn the building into a 60-unit apartment complex for tenants at 60 percent of median income (median income is about $42,000 in Baton Rouge) and add a second building.

The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency has announced a complete overhaul of the Capital City South Apartments. That $12 million project aims to turn a boarded-up, fence-enclosed eyesore at 150 S. 17th St. into 68 mixed-income apartments and a 13,500-square-foot community center. Looking forward to seeing how the apts turn-out

The fate of Entergy’s two buildings on Government Street is at this point unknown, but planners are upbeat about the possibilities after Entergy announced plans to build a new headquarters on Pecue Lane.

Work will begin this summer on a $56 million renovation to Baton Rouge Magnet High on Government Street. The finished product, shown here in an artist’s rendering, will include restoration of existing elements and an addition on the east side of the building (right).

*There are also plans by the Gulf Coast Housing Alliance to build 32 two- and three-bedroom units along North 19th Street between North and Gayosa streets.

*Another project Gulf Coast is involved in is the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless’ one-stop center at 153 N. 17th St. That center will have 36 housing units and 15,000 square feet of community service space and will add a much-needed 1,000 beds to the city’s stock of beds for the homeless. The services at the one-stop center would include case management, showers, laundry facilities, meals, access to telephones, medical services, mental health screenings and employment services such as job training.

*Developer Robert Whittington, who put three buildings at the end of Garig Avenue, a short, unassuming street across North Foster Drive from the Albertson’s grocery store, plans on putting 45 more units there in the near future. Sanders said plans call for the nearby former DJ’s Beauty School to be torn down, giving the development access from Government Street.This project of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, called The MI Ville Condominiums, is still in the design phase and is still pursuing financing.

*Colonial Park CDC, a new nonprofit residential developer, is planning about 40 single-family homes for sale in the Eden Park neighborhood along Acadian Thruway between Gus Young and North Street.

*The Midcity alliance’s façade improvement grant program is continuing to help aid improvements along Government Street. Sanders noted there are several businesses, including Raising Cane’s, Smoothie King and Bill McMillin Interiors, that have changed their signs to fit in with the standards called for in the Government Street Master Action Plan that the Mid-City Merchants Association helped spearhead several years ago.That plan called for, among other things, stores to change from tall signs that clutter the visual landscape to smaller, monument-style signs. Government Street’s arts component also seems to be feeding off itself and has added a number of boutique shops in recent years.

>>And a few other projects in article... too many to post

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/business/93160024.html?index=27&c=y

Edited May 11, 2010 by richyb83

[richyb83]

Westmoreland to seek rezoning

The Westmoreland Shopping Center is set to go before the Planning Commission later this month to get a zoning change. Ryan Holcomb, project coordinator for the planning department, says the move has nothing to do with any upcoming development for the Mid City shopping center. Rather, it's a reaction to an earlier zoning change. The Resource Group got the zoning on the center changed in early 2007, when there were plans to turn Westmoreland into a mixed-use development with condominiums, town homes, retail and restaurants. In anticipation of this, the nine-acre center was rezoned from commercial use to a small planned unit development in February 2007. But plans for the redevelopment fell through a few months later. Holcomb says the SPUD zoning was valid for three years. "Our office is required to initiate it back for prior zoning," says Holcomb. Redeveloping Westmoreland has been a longtime goal of Mid City officials, who want to turn the partially occupied property into a catalyst for rejuvenating the area.

http://www.businessreport.com/archives/daily-report/latest/

[richyb83]

Panel rejects zoning change

The East Baton Rouge Parish Planning and Zoning Commission voted Monday to keep the Westmoreland Shopping Center zoned the way it is over the owner’s objection that the designation is making it difficult to sell the property. The commission voted 7-1 to leave the Government Street shopping center zoned as a small planned unit development, rather than have it revert back to C-1, a commercial designation that allows for a wider array of commercial uses.

The commission followed the recommendation of Planning Director Troy Bunch and his staff, who said the SPUD zoning reflects the public input provided by the surrounding neighborhoods three years ago.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/99291829.html#comment-form