From the original location of the Co-op Bookstore and Baker’s Restaurant to Varsity Theatre and Louie’s Cafe, the North Gate area has housed some of the University’s most beloved local establishments, but a new development is hoping to find its place even without local flavor.
 
College Row, the new shopping center at the North Gates of the University, is filling up with large national companies in an area that hasn’t seen many chains find success.
 
Some of the oldest businesses in the area date back before World War II; the Varsity Theatre opened its doors in 1937, while Louie’s, which moved to its current location in 1986, opened on Chimes Street   in 1941.
 
Other popular places haven’t been around quite that long but still have more staying power than other businesses that have tried their hand in the area.
 
The Chimes Restaurant opened in 1983 — after the building was previously used as a drug store — and has been around for about 27 years.
 
In the last 20 years, State Street and the Chimes area has seen Pizza Hut, Blockbuster, Gap, Foot Locker, Sunglass Hut, Claire’s, Great American Cookie, Verizon Wireless and others open their doors, only to meet little success and close, according to research done by Clarke Cadzow of the North Gate Merchants Association.
 
In that same timeframe, local businesses like The Chimes, Louie’s, Inga’s Subs and Salads, Highland Coffees, Chimes Textbook Exchange and The Bicycle Shop have remained popular mainstays of the neighborhood.
 
“Chain stores are not going to solidify this neighborhood. Uniqueness is something people gravitate to,” said State Street landowner Jeremy Dellafiora.
 
Campus Apartments, a Philadelphia-based company, owns College Row, as well as the Campus Crossings and Venue apartment complexes.
 
Campus Apartments Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer Dan Bernstein is optimistic the shopping center will bring in enough business to do well.
 
“We hope by bringing in more traffic we’ll be more successful,” Bernstein said.
 
Julia Terese, a creative writing junior who lives on State Street, described the neighborhood as younger and more free-spirited than other areas around campus, and said she doesn’t think the new development goes with the neighborhood.
 
“It doesn’t really fit because it’s a big corporate block,” Terese said.
But bringing in local businesses wasn’t an economic possibility because Campus Apartments needed companies that would be able to pay off their leases, Bernstein said.
 
“To get financing you have to have credit tenants,” Bernstein said. “We tried to get a good mix of credit tenants and needed goods and services.”
 
What most people in the neighborhood wanted in the space was a grocery store, said long-time resident Jerome Braud, who has lived in the North Gate area for more than 20 years.
 
“We’ve gone 10 years, maybe a little more, without a grocery store in this neighborhood. Their choice of tenants so far I really am not liking on an existential level,” Braud said.
 
But a grocery store wasn’t possible for the space, Bernstein said.
 
“Grocery stores are a difficult development,” he said. “We would have had to devote the whole parcel to a grocery store.”
 
While the new center will bring competition, it could have a positive effect on business around the North Gate area, said Charlotte Cox, Storyville manager and member of the North Gate Merchants Association.
 
“I think it’s an incentive for students to come to this side of campus,” Cox said.
 
Campus Apartments tried to bring in good tenants that, although large companies, are relatively unique to Baton Rouge and have a higher chance of being successful, Bernstein said.
 
Campus Apartments is also bringing in direct competitors to local businesses, but no one wants to see local places go out of business, Faulkner said.
 
“When that happens, you’re getting rid of a lot of what makes a good city,” Faulkner said.
 
 
 
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Contact Frederick Holl at [email protected]