Baton Rouge: A Tale of Two Cites

It’s a well worn cliché around here that Baton Rouge is a tale of
two cities – with both the highest income levels and outcomes in
the state and the lowest. Which of the two cities you’re in
depends on whether you’re north or south of Florida Boulevard.
There are a lot of reasons for this. On this edition of Out to
Lunch, Stephanie and her guests focus specifically on real estate
investment – and dis-investmet and reinvestment – to better
understand how and where developers are investing in this
community, and what’s going on in some long-neglected areas.


Chris Tyson is President and CEO of Build Baton Rouge, the
city-parish redevelopment authority, which was founded in 2009 to
promote equitable investment in disinvested communities
throughout Baton Rouge. Chris took over at the helm of Build
Baton Rouge in 2016 and is leading the agency through an
ambitious effort to revitalize one of Baton Rouge’s most blighted
corridors – Plank Road. Chris is a real estate attorney by
training with a graduate degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government and a law degree from Georgetown. He is also a
distinguished professor at LSU’s Paul M Hebert Law Center. 


Donnie Jarreau is a real estate developer and investor who’s been
active in the Baton Rouge market since the late 1980s. Early in
2020 he restructured his real estate brokerage, Jarreau Real
Estate, to expand from a traditional commercial brokerage and
property management services into an investment platform - JRE
Private Equity Group - that enables qualified investors to buy
into properties that the company identify as attractive
investments.


On a whole other business track, Donnie is  a founder and
part owner in the Regymen Fitness chain, a boutique fitness
concept with locations now in four states and Canada. 


See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. Check
out this conversation about post Covid Baton Rouge real estate.


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