Imagine if Baton Rouge had more than a handful of bars to choose from.
Imagine Baton Rouge with coffee shops and open-air restaurants that line clean streets.
Imagine a Baton Rouge where people live and walk around the city at night – and feel safe.
Too hard to believe?
Here at The Reveille we think this is a possibility. Baton Rouge’s very own Downtown Development District has been hyping and publicizing its progress as the key to revitalizing our virtual ghost town.
But we think they have missed the mark.
As a University of more than 30,000 students, we are the foremost consumers in this area, which includes downtown.
The Downtown Development District has focused its efforts on building a daytime trolley looping city buildings, art museums and cultural events like zydeco concerts.
In the biggest consolidation project since the construction of the new state capitol building, the DDD has managed to get everyone excited about the possibility of a new and more entertaining downtown area.
If the DDD really wants to revive the downtown area of Baton Rouge, it will cater to those who are ready for change and have a lot of money to spend on social activities.
Shawn O’Brien, the DDD’s vice chancellor, made a comment about how he envisioned a city where downtown office workers could make most of their living in the city.
“We want to encourage people who live and work downtown to stay downtown,” O’Brien said. “There are lots of new state employees now because of all the new buildings, and we want them to stay in the area for lunch and errands.”
Great. Baton Rouge has bustling streets during the day and empty skeletal streets at night when those office workers retreat to their homes.
Our downtown area needs bars, clubs, restaurants, coffee shops and merchants of all kinds – not planetariums, museums, parking garages and trolleys.
We hate to burst the DDD’s bubble, but promoting zydeco concerts and art museums is not going to bring the spending machine that is our student body to the area.
If nothing else, the precious office workers may just stay around into the night to go out for drink or two.
Okay, build an art gallery. But, for every art gallery have two or three bars or nightclubs.
Look at Lafayette. Its downtown area, which was like Baton Rouge a few years ago, now has the distinction of being called, “Little Bourbon Street.”
Austin, Texas, another capital city, has a booming downtown and a vibrant nightlife. What do they have that we don’t? Bars.
Now, as students, it is our duty to make the DDD work for us because this is our downtown area too.
If we want bars ands good nightlife, then we need to demand it.
We should use these cities as examples for downtown development projects that worked. We need to shy away from the cajun historical Utopia we think we are creating by adding zydeco concerts and trolleys.
We want to be downtown.
Look at places like Tabby’s Blue Box and RedStar. We will come downtown if you attract and build bars and clubs that distinguish themselves from the usual Tigerland bars we have grown tired of.
Tabby Thomas put it best – “It should be bar after bar after bar.”