Visit Baton Rouge is buying an unoccupied historic building downtown and transforming it into its new headquarters.
VBR signed a purchase agreement last month to buy the building on Lafayette Street near the Hilton and Hotel Indigo. The building has been vacant for decades and is missing a roof.
The state bond commission recently approved VBR’s request to seek a $7 million loan from the bank to purchase and renovate the building.
“We’ve outgrown our offices,” says Laura Cating with VBR. “We are feeling a bit disconnected in our current space. We don’t have a lot of collaboration space or a lot of meeting rooms.”
VBR has occupied its nearly 7,000-square-foot space on 3rd Street for nearly 20 years. The new building is nearly double that space.
The purchase will also help revitalize the historic space, Cating says.
“The Lafayette Street building has been empty for decades, so it’s created an eyesore in our community in a heavily trafficked area,” Cating adds. This allows us to breathe new life into another district of downtown.”
“Several people have looked at it. It has quite a bit of potential, but for some reason, it never got revitalized,” Downtown Development District Executive Director Whitney Hoffman Sayal says.
Cating says the design phase and renovation will begin once the purchase is complete. If all goes as planned, the project would be completed in 2026.
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