Baton Rouge Office Market Sees Significant Activity In April

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

At this year’s Trends in Real Estate seminar held on April 16, the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors said that it expects the region’s office market to remain strong in 2015. As if to prove the GBRAR right, in the days following the event, it was revealed that the market registered a spike in activity this month.

According to The Advocate, two Baton Rouge office properties changed hands recently. Physicians Realty Trust, a Milwaukee-based health care real estate company, expanded its Louisiana portfolio with the acquisition of the medical office building at 9118 Bluebonnet Centre Blvd. The asset was purchased from YBR LLC. for $10.5 million. The property has two stories and 25,209 square feet of space, and is home to Comprehensive Pain Management.

The second transaction involved an office building located on the same street. Bardwell Homes, a local homebuilder, paid $875,000 for the 5,000-square-foot property at 5153 Bluebonnet Blvd. The company plans to move into the newly acquired building by the end of the month.

The Advocate also said that work is about to begin on the renovation of the old Butler Furniture building in downtown Baton Rouge. The $800,000 project will involve the conversion of the property into an office building, consisting of one 3,000-square-foot suite and two 1,200-square-foot suites. Gordon LeBlanc is the developer of the project. He plans to open the renovated building next September. Rents will be about $20 per square foot.

Finally, Raising Cane’s has signed a lease for 6,500 square feet of space on the eighth floor of the IBM Building. The office is expected to open next month. The company will move to the new location sometime this fall, together with about 25 or 30 employees. It currently occupies 5,300 square feet of space in II City Plaza.