Baton Rouge’s $45M Water Campus Development Breaks Ground

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Governor Bobby Jindal joined officials from the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, LSU, the City of Baton Rouge, and the Water Institute last week, to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Center for River Studies. It is the first building of the $45 million Water Campus development, an aspiring world-class research and engineering center in Baton Rouge.

The Center for River Studies will be the new home of the Expanded Small Scale Physical Model, one of the largest moving bed physical models in the world. This state-of-the-art model measures 90 feet by 120 feet and is based on exact parameters of the river’s physical and kinetic properties. It was designed to simulate the Mississippi River’s depth, sediment, and flow, and it will help sustain coastal Louisiana.

The facility and the model are constructed with the help of $16 million from the Coastal Impact Assistance Program. Once finished, the Center for River Studies will be donated to LSU, which will operate it with funds from CPRA.

The 33-acre Water Campus is developed through a partnership between the State of Louisiana, the City of Baton Rouge and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Its initial phase will include three additional facilities: an office building for the CPRE, a multi-tenant office building, and a new education and research center for The Water Institute of the Gulf. The project will be developed over the next decade.

Photo credit: Commercial Properties Real Estate Trust