BATON ROUGE - A survey to shape downtown Baton Rouge closes in less than a week, and those with previous plans say it is time to take another look at the downtown.

In 1998, the people of Baton Rouge piled into meetings, pitching ideas of what the downtown could look like. It was for the first Plan Baton Rouge, a downtown development master plan.

Former Baton Rouge Area Foundation Executive Vice President John Spain said the goal was to create a 24-hour city.

"People live here, walk to work, when they get off work and go to lunch, eat at a restaurant downtown, that was the key, that's what happened, that spurred an entire economy centered around entertainment, what happens after 5 o'clock," Spain said.

Also in the 1990s, the creation of the Capitol Campus, where the state moved 3,000 of its employees downtown.

"The Attorney General's office for example, they were scattered between five different locations around town. How do we bring them down and consolidate them into one building?" Mark Drennen, former Commissioner of Administration and current President and CEO of Capital Area Finance Authority said.

Some may remember construction for this undertaking in 2003 when the state imploded the Departments of Natural Resources and Education buildings.

Former President and CEO of the Center for Planning Excellence Elizabeth "Boo" Thomas served on the project's steering committee at this time.

"For the next almost seven years, we implemented 89%, which is unheard of because people say, you know, plans sit on the shelf, that nothing gets done," Thomas said.

According to Plan One, Third Street saw department stores like Sears and JC Penny's in the 1950s and 1960s. But in the late 1960s and 1970s, retail started moving away to other shopping centers. By the mid-1980s, most of the retailers that drew people downtown had left the Central Business District.

"Third Street had been the core of economic development in our city, and not unlike other places, malls were built near suburbs, people moved away from downtown. Downtown was dying," Spain said.

So, Plan One came about to bring it back to life.

"When Plan Baton Rouge started, there were no downtown hotels. There was one parking garage that the city owned," Thomas said. "And, so to look today and see the difference, there are seven hotels now."

For example, the Shaw Center for the Arts, where the Auto Hotel once stood, welcomed a theatre, museum, restaurants and more into downtown as part of Plan One.

"A $55-million project, all came out of a planning session in 1997-1998," Drennen said.

Rachel DiResto with Emergent Method has been involved with all three plans, initially starting as a volunteer. She said, in 2008, Plan Two picked up where Plan One left off, with the desire to bring more housing and retail and also figure out financial incentives and regulations to make developers want to participate in projects downtown.

"It was time to look at it and say, 'Well, what didn't get accomplished?'" DiResto said. "Plan Baton Rouge Two was based on the idea that there were many other cities that had a lot of residential growth in their downtown, and we weren't seeing that as much. So, it was a study of what kind of incentives did developers need to be attracted to downtown?"

In Plan Two, DiResto said more than $20 million were invested into green spaces, from parks to the Downtown Greenway. Another $200 million was invested into more housing. During Plan One, less than 2,000 people lived downtown. A 2025 report for the Downtown Development District said nearly 4,000 people live downtown today. The report also said three-quarters of downtown residents surveyed said they want more housing as well.

"There's a high demand for residential living downtown. In fact, a recent poll showed state workers would prefer to live downtown if they had affordable residential. So I think that's something we're going to see addressed in plan Baton Rouge Three," she said.

Plus, millions of dollars were invested into downtown hotels and riverfront-related projects. Around the time of Plan Two's creation, Mayor Kip Holden was pushing for a project called Audubon Alive, a 200-thousand square foot facility and nature park near The Queen Baton Rouge. But the price tag, more than $200 million, was not approved by voters in 2008. It also was unsuccessful when it went on the ballot in 2009.

Now, looking to Plan Three, BRAF's Vice President of Civic Leadership Eric Dexter said a big goal is to tackle the riverfront.

"I can tell you that some of the areas that we have a particular interest in. One is along the riverfront, but there are different pockets and nodes of development along the riverfront, starting all the way back towards what's now the Queen Casino, used to be the old Hollywood Casino. There are properties along there that could potentially be developed, and look at some recreational activities or an amphitheater that could be put there, that's been floated," Dexter said. "There are other opportunities that we have with the KIDD. Is it going to remain in the same place whenever she comes back?"

He adds he hopes the downtown can build a stronger relationship with LSU and Southern University, and also bring more affordable housing.

But, he says plans of this scale require private-public partnerships, with a variety of funding sources like private investment and public tax dollars.

"Each of those projects will have a price tag that is associated. Give them any type of strategies for implementation, financial incentives and you know a cost. And so that is the next stage of that. How do we finance those that still remains to be seen. There probably will be some public dollars that will need to be used as well as you know, philanthropic dollars and other private investment," Dexter said.

The survey closes September 1, 2025. It can be found here.

"Dream big as to how we can put something exciting up and down the Mississippi," Spain said.

Credit to BRAF for providing pictures.