The Downtown Development District is currently conducting a survey to gather information and opinions from Baton Rouge residents about a potential grocery store in the city’s downtown area. The survey began two weeks ago after developers expressed interest in adding a grocery store to the downtown area, said Davis Rhorer, executive director of the Downtown Development District. The survey has been distributed to 5,000 residents so far and has received nearly 1,200 responses, Rhorer said. The survey’s questions focused on supporting local business, residents’ ideal travel distance to a grocery store and the downtown area, residents’ preferred grocery store and the idea of a downtown grocery store, in addition to a number of other subjects. Survey results show a positive response to the idea of a downtown grocery store with 82 percent of respondents supporting a new store. Additionally, 76 percent of respondents are willing to travel 0-10 miles to a grocery store – about the distance from the University to the downtown area. Rhorer said the need for a downtown grocery store is glaring as the nearest one is Calandro’s Supermarket at the corner of Government and Edison streets. “It’s one of those catalytic projects that stabilizes residential development downtown,” he said. Rhorer said a few ideas about what the downtown grocery store might be and where it will be located exist but can’t be revealed just yet. He said the next stewp is to forward the survey results to the appropriate people who have expressed interest in developing a store. Residents can participate in the survey or view results by clicking a link to the downtown grocery store survey on the right-hand side of the page at downtownbatonrouge.org.
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Contact Ferris McDaniel at [email protected]