The Advocate
By CHRIS GAUTREAU 
Advocate business writer 

One of the last, big pieces of empty Spanish Town land has changed hands in a deal that observers hope will one day kick-start development outside the eastern edge of downtown.

Highlander Downtown Developments LLC, a division of Donnie Jarreau Companies, paid $2.1 million Thursday for properties totaling 11.3 acres east of Interstate 110.

Chad Ortte, a Donnie Jarreau agent who helped broker the deal with seller Joseph Atiyeh, said the land - actually several parcels north of Main Street and west of the railroad tracks - was purchased primarily as an investment.

"There are no immediate plans," Ortte said Friday. "We just think downtown is a good place for investment. We're considering different things, (but) our main focus was closing."

Samuel Sanders, executive director of the Mid-City Redevelopment Alliance, said, however, that his group is "extremely hopeful" Donnie Jarreau Companies will develop the land surrounding Nicholson Elementary School on North Street.

"Our belief is that is probably the best tract available in this area to do a high-density development with a commercial mix," Sanders said. "It's one that would also bring about that development 'wave' we've been looking for between downtown and midcity."

Ortte said that closing the sale took more than a year because of the lengthy process of gaining clear title to the land.

"It was one of most complicated deals we've ever done," he said.

Establishing clear title is a frequent hurdle for development the city's older neighborhoods. Potential buyers often walk away, rather than get bogged down by the process of tracking down generations of heirs or sorting out decades' worth of unpaid liens and taxes.

"It's made some situations a little more challenging," Sanders acknowledged. "It becomes more and more work for the average developer who doesn't have time."

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, Daily Report
By Timothy Boone

Plans to build a Microtel Inn & Suites on College Drive have been submitted to the city-parish. The 69-unit hotel would be built near the Concord Avenue intersection, behind the College Crossing shopping center. Donnie Jarreau, who is developing the hotel, says no start date has been for construction. "Our intent is to build it, but we're not 100% sure if we're going to do this," Jarreau says. "We have been approached about selling the property and we're keeping our options open." The hotel would tie in with other Jarreau-owned developments around the College-Perkins Road intersection, such as College Crossing, Southdowns Shopping Center and Spectrum Gym. "We kind of thought it would be successful with the retail and the restaurants in that area," he says.

Donnie Jarreau Companies will move ahead with permitting the old Perkins Road Hardware site in the next 30 days, says Chad Ortte, an agent with the firm.

Construction crews will begin work on the former Perkins Road Hardware building in the next few weeks, beginning its transformation into a mixed-use development anchored by a new concept by a New Orleans-area restaurant, a local gourmet pizzeria and four apartment units.

Chad Ortte of Donnie Jarreau Companies said the anchor restaurant is not ready to make an announcement, but that it is a fine-dining establishment with rustic motif serving Louisiana cuisine.

He would not comment on the word "Dakota" appearing on a schematic filed with the city-parish Department of Public Works.

The second restaurant will be a pizzeria owned by Zippy's owner Neil Hendricks. It will go into an addition to the existing building where the former hardware store's greenhouse was.

Ortte said plans call for four apartment units on the second and third floors of the building, and parking in the rear after part of the existing warehouse is torn down. Ortte said a second phase could turn 2,000 square feet of the remaining portion of the warehouse into retail or office space.

Perkins Road Hardware, the anchor of the collection of local retailers that make up the popular Perkins Road Overpass area, suffered fire damage in late 2006 and the owners sold the buildings to Jarreau last year.

Ortte said the redevelopment will be keeping as much of the building as possible and try to retain some of the aesthetic elements of the hardware store.

He said there has been no final decision on a name for the development, but the company formed to redevelop the property is Perkins Renaissance Development and what they come up with will likely "be something that keeps the memory of it being a hardware store."

The Advocate
By Chad Calder

Changes long in the works are beginning to take place on a vibrant stretch of Baton Rouge road less than a mile long.

The Perkins Road overpass area, home to a high concentration of local bars, restaurants and goods and service retailers, will see its namesake bridge rehabilitated, it's "anchor" revived (albeit in a different form) and the start of the long-awaited redevelopment of the former Acadian Village shopping center.

--Construction crews will begin work on the former Perkins Road Hardware building in the next few weeks, beginning its transformation into a mixed-use development. It will include a new concept by an undisclosed New Orleans-area restaurant, a local gourmet pizzeria and four apartment units on second and third levels.

Much of the warehouse behind the store will be torn down for parking, though a later phase could turn the remaining 2,000 square feet of the warehouse into retail or office space.

Perkins Road Hardware, an institution for the neighborhood and its retail anchor, caught fire in December 2006 and never reopened. Its owners decided to sell the building to developer Donnie Jarreau.

--The Acme Oyster House is now under construction in the former Acadian Village shopping center at Perkins Road and Acadian Thruway/Stanford Avenue and could open by the end of August.

Jeremy DeBlieux, Acme's director of business development, said the French Quarter institution's fifth and newest location is on schedule to open in late summer. It will seat about 200 diners and be open for lunch and dinner, seven days a week.

A spokesman for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's real estate development unit, which bought the shopping center in 2004 after it was abandoned by Wal-Mart, said that more tenants could be announced later this year.

--The overpass, built in 1937 when the city-parish line was just over the hill at Virgil and Perkins, could begin an 18-week, $2.5 million rehabilitation by the end of the year. It last had some minor rehabilitation in the late 1970s. The work this time will include redoing the decking under the asphalt, realigning deck panels, replacing bearings, fixing the sidewalks and replacing the southern approach. "The bridge is strong," said city-parish drainage and bridge engineer Jim Ferguson. "It just has some critical deficiencies that need to be addressed, and it needs to be rehabilitated."

A public meeting will be held May 28 to notify the community of the project, 80 percent of which will be funded by the federal government and 20 percent from the state.

--New turn lanes in both directions at each quadrant at the intersection of Perkins and Stanford Avenue/Acadian Thruway are part of the city-parish's Green Light Initiative. The $8.5 million effort, which will include a slight widening of the right-of-way and some new curb cuts, is listed on the city-parish's Web site, though a representative for the program was unavailable for comment.

Taken from Perks Coffee House above the overpass down to Acadian/Stanford, the stretch of road is a local who's who of retail categories all but killed off in other areas by national chains over the last two decades.

Its grocery store, sporting And, of course, until about 18 months ago, there was a local hardware store there, too.

All serve a diverse stable of neighborhoods that include Old South Baton Rouge, the Garden District, Southdowns, Hundred Oaks and the houses on the LSU lakes.

To Lillie Petit Gallagher, who lives on nearby East Lakeshore Drive, that stretch of Perkins Road "is Baton Rouge's Magazine Street."

"It's not a cookie cutter-looking neighborhood, it's a diverse neighborhood."

And like many there, she's hoping to see Donnie Jarreau Cos. retain as much of the old hardware building's character as possible.

"It just gives (the strip) a wonderful ambience that you can't get in an area where there's been an attempt to make all the buildings look different," she said, describing the "faux" character of many newer mixed-use developments.

Bill Bonnette, one of the owners of Bolton Health Mart, said many customers have mentioned how much they missed having the hardware store there.

"They really do miss that," he said. "We didn't know how much we missed it until it was gone."

Bonnette said he'd like to see another hardware store and noted that the area is already flush with restaurants; still, he is just glad to see the building put back to use.

Gallagher said she has faith that Jarreau will honor assurances he's made to redevelop the property with the rest of the neighborhood in mind.

Chad Ortte, a broker with Jarreau's development company, concurred the redevelopment will be keeping as much of the building as possible and try to retain some of the aesthetic elements of the hardware store.

He said there has been no final decision on a name, but the company formed to redevelop the property is Perkins Renaissance Development and what they come up with will likely "be something that keeps the memory of it being a hardware store."

At the southern end of the strip, long-awaited changes are beginning to take shape, with the Acme Oyster House construction as the beginning of a redesigned Acadian Village.

Commercial Properties in 2004 bought the property - minus the Shell Station at the front of the property and the building that sits on the corner of Acadian and Perkins. The company held meetings to allow for public input in the center's redevelopment, but other than Elio Marcello's Wine Warehouse briefly occupying the former Books-A-Million shop and the occasional film production using the former Wal-Mart, there has been no activity.

Baton Rouge Area Foundation spokesman Mukul Verma said the foundation's for-profit development unit, Commercial Properties Development Corp., has had to redesign the project because of the rising cost of construction materials.

He said Commercial Properties will be mindful of what the neighborhood's stakeholders said they wanted. He added that despite the change of plans, the project could still include residential development.

Verma said Commercial Properties is in discussions with several other potential tenants, and that the development could end up being predominantly local, which would complement the retail mix up the street.

"We do expect a mix of tenants that includes restaurants and conventional, smaller boutique shops," he said.

DeBlieux said Acme likes the location's visibility and said the access to LSU, the interstate, the Perkins Road Overpass area and its surrounding neighborhood make it the ideal location.

"We've been looking at Baton Rouge for quite some time," DeBlieux said. "We were waiting for the best location we could find, and we think Acadian and Perkins is just a perfect location."

Verma said the development is also supportive of the Green Light Initiative's plans to improve the intersection and the streetscape.

Ortte said he'd ultimately like to see streetscape improvements, including sidewalks, lighting and benches, all along the Perkins Road Overpass area, possibly through the creation of an overlay district.

Overlay districts are a set of compulsory and voluntary design standards

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, Real Estate Weekly
By Tom Cook

Troy Daigle of Donnie Jarreau Real Estate Company brokered a 47,934-square-foot site on Coursey Boulevard to Holly's Car Care. The sale closed on Friday for $455,000, or $9.50 for square foot. Daigle says a new car care/tire center will be built on the site, which adjoins a Sonic Drive-In.

Marshall D. Mansour sold a 3,600-square-foot office warehouse at 11549 Investor Ave. to Control Solutions. The sale price was $330,000, or about $91 per square foot. According to Brad Way with NAI/Latter & Blum Realtors, the property was in excellent condition, and suited the purchaser for owner-occupancy.

(Appraiser Tom Cook owns Cook Moore and Associates. Reach him at 293-7006 or TCook@cookmoore.com.)

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, Daily Report

Gulf Coast Bank has purchased a 30,000-square-foot parcel on Coursey Boulevard next to The Chimes East with plans to build a third Baton Rouge branch. The Metairie-based bank, which also has a regional office under construction on Jefferson Highway, paid $480,000 for the land. Jacob Richardson of Kurz & Hebert Commercial Real Estate represented Gulf Coast Bank, while Jonathan Starns of Donnie Jarreau Companies represented the seller. The land was part of a 2.2-acre tract that Jarreau bought last year for commercial retail. Jarreau plans to develop the rest of the 1.7 acres.

The Advocate, Business to Business

Donnie Jarreau Companies says it sold a 30,000-square-foot out-parcel on Coursey Boulevard last week to Gulf Coast Bank for $480,000.

The property is part of a development next to the Chimes East on Coursey.

Jonathan Starns of Donnie Jarreau Real Estate Inc., represented the seller, ACE Holdings LLC, one of Jarreau's subsidiaries.

Donnie Jarreau said Gulf Coast plans to eventually build a branch on the property.

Donnie Jarreau also said the remaining 1.7 acres at the site will be developed into commercial retail.

Greater Baton Rouge Buisness Report - Daily Report
By Timothy Boone

A 1.77-acre tract in Walker has been sold for $1 million to a group of developers who plan to build a 16,000-square-foot shopping center on the site. Kimble Development bought the land on Walker South Road from Alex and Loretta Theriot in a deal that closed Thursday. Kent Walker of Donnie Jarreau Companies, who represented Kimble Development, says the undeveloped land is between the Wal-Mart Supercenter and Stine Lumber. Construction on the shopping center should start in the next month or so and should be finished by the end of the year, Walker says. Hibbett Sports will take up 5,000 square feet of the center; Walker could not disclose additional tenants.-Timothy Boone

The Advocate - Business Briefs

A Walker company paid just over $1 million this week for a 1.8-acre tract of undeveloped land on Walker South Road in Walker and plans to build a retail development that so far will include Hibbet Sports store.

Mitch and Mike Kimble, principals of Kimble Development of Walker LLC, will get started later this summer on a 16,000-square-foot retail center, according to Donnie Jarreau Companies agent Kent Walker who helped broker the deal. Walker said Hibbet Sports already has signed a lease for space at the center, and several other national and regional tenants are in lease negotiations.

Walker identified the seller as Alex Theriot Jr.

Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, Daily Report
By Timothy Boone

Four tenants are moving into Southdowns Village as part of an art and design section of the Perkins Road shopping center. Interior design firm Interiors 2, architectural hardware retailer The Front Door, Jeannie Frey Rhodes Photography and a second location for Ann Connelly Fine Art are scheduled to open in the center over the next few months, says Sage Roberts, a spokeswoman for Donnie Jarreau Companies, which is redeveloping Southdowns Village. The businesses will be spread over two buildings in the back of the shopping center. "They'll have the ability to share ideas and materials," Roberts says. "That should create a lot of energy and ambiance."

The Advocate - Business Briefs for July 10, 2008

Donnie Jarreau Companies said Wednesday it brokered the sale of a 1.4-acre tract in Pineville set for development as a retail center.

Donnie Jarreau said Petron LLC sold the land on U.S. 165 for $936,600 to Kimble Development of Pineville LLC.

Broker Kent Walker said Kimble Development will build a 20,000-square-foot retail center on the site that is set to open in time for this year's holiday shopping season. Walker said that more than 80 percent of the space is either preleased or under letters of intent.

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report

Demolition is well under way at two Perkins Road sites that will be the spots for high-profile, mixed-use developments. The Acadian Village Shopping Center at Perkins and Acadian Thruway is starting to come down, and demolition is almost complete at Perkins Road Hardware location. What will go into those two locations is still sort of unknown: Officials with Commercial Properties Realty Trust, which owns Acadian Village, and Donnie Jarreau Companies, which owns Perkins Road Hardware, are holding back on some details. Perkins Road Hardware will contain apartments and two restaurants, one a fine dining establishment owned by a New Orleans operator, the other a casual pizza parlor run by Zippy's owner Neal Hendrick. Acadian Village will contain the Acme Oyster House, which is scheduled to open this fall, and the State Bond Commission has approved $4 million for a Robert Fresh Market grocery store.

The Advocate staff report 
Published: Aug 16, 2008

Oceans Behavioral Hospital of Baton Rouge, a division of Lake Charles-based Oceans Healthcare Group, paid $600,000 for the former Foxy's Fitness for Women location at 11135 Florida Blvd., sales records show.

The seller was Mike Barnett, owner of the Foxy's chain, represented by Troy Daigle of Donnie Jarreau Companies.

Daigle said Oceans Behavioral will convert the 1.6-acre site near Sherwood Forest Boulevard into a small hospital.

A message left with the company Friday morning was not returned.

According to its Web site, Oceans Healthcare provides geriatric services in underserved communities in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

The Advocate, Business Today August 27, 2008

Donnie Jarreau Cos. has filed a $1.3 million permit to renovate and rebuild the former Perkins Hardware site that burned in late 2006.

Jarreau will complete a 13,400-square-foot project in the Perkins Overpass District that calls for two to three ground-floor restaurant/retail spaces and two to four adjoining apartments. The project, called the Perkins Renaissance Development, should be completed in the first quarter 2009, said company spokeswoman Sage Roberts.

Jarreau has a "very interested party" for one of the restaurant spaces but no lease is signed yet, she said.

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report,Real Estate Weekly
By Tom Book

The former Foxy's Fitness for Women site on Florida Boulevard just west of Sherwood Forest Boulevard has sold. Troy Daigle of Donnie Jarreau Real Estate brokered the $600,000 sale to Oceans Behavioral Hospital of Baton Rouge, which intends to convert the 12,500-square-foot, two-story building to an Alzheimer's care facility. The sale price calculates to about $48 per square foot. Daigle says the "bones" of the building were in good shape, and renovations are now under way. Foxy's Health and Fitness, which has been operating for 50 years, closed its women's-only location on Florida Boulevard in summer 2007 and relocated to a more modern facility on Old Hammond Highway near Sharp Road.

Jarreau, Donnie
Friday, September 12, 2008

Full name: Donnie Jarreau

Title: CEO, Broker

Company: Donnie Jarreau Companies

Why do you do what you do?

To attempt to change and inspire the way real estate development is done, and simultaneously challenge our employees to compete against ourselves not other companies.

What is your greatest professional accomplishment?

That our companies have been able to hire people that love going to work every day and challenge each other and seek to change the "status quo" business models.

What was your first job?

16 years old - Sears pet department

What is the best advice you've ever received?

To identify "Why you do what you do" and "not what you do".

Who do you most admire in the local business community and why?

Real Estate Leaders - the "Big 3": Mike Wampold, Steve Keller and Tommy Spinosa - for their vision and execution of extraordinary developments. Community & Civic Leader - Charles Valuzzo-for his continued comittment to community service

If you could have any job other than your own, what would it be?

I am truly blessed to believe there isn't a single profession I know of that I would rather be in than real estate.

What is the greatest personal or professional obstacle you've overcome?

In 1989 I lost a dear friend in a car wreck, lost my job, and my four restaurants closed down. Through God's grace, I was lifted through it all.

If you started over, what would you do differently?

I would have finished college at LSU. I would also attempt to be more patient and more carefully consider my decisions - not be so quick to say 'yes' to everything.

What is your prescription for life?

Placing God first, loving and spending quality time with family, and simply treat everyone like you want to be treated.

What book are you currently reading?

The Shack by William P. Young

If you could have dinner with any three living people, who would they be? (Authors? Leaders?)

Rick Warren, Bill Gates and President Bush

Who would play you in a movie?

Cary Grant

What do you do to unwind?

Travel to Gulf Shores with family.

What is the most expensive purchase you've made for yourself?

A failed food franchise.

What is your favorite weekend activity?

Spending time with my family and getting in a good workout.

What's your theme song?

"Take it Easy" by the Eagles

What's your favorite spot in Baton Rouge?

Spectrum Fitness Clubs

How do you take your coffee/tea?

Green Tea, straight up

What is your favorite movie? TV show? Band?

Movie - The Godfather, TV show - The Wire, band - The Eagles

What is your favorite gadget?

HP 12c

What is something that you can't live without?

F-T-3 Calloway Driver

If you could change one thing about Baton Rouge, what would it be?

Hot climate

What is your greatest hope for Baton Rouge?

That we trust our bright young people - they are helping to make this a progressive city through diversity and smart community planning.

What is your greatest fear for Baton Rouge?

That we will never be able to overcome the racial and ethnic barriers. We cannot let Baton Rouge become (or remain, depending on who you ask) a typically segregated Southern city. Baton Rouge MUST be an integrated city, for all people, regardless of race, social and financial status, for it to flourish and thrive

Address: 10500 Coursey Blvd. Baton Rouge, LA 70816 Contiguous Space Available: 1500-4109 SF Total Space Available: 9,376 SF Lease Rate: $19.75 PSF Agent: Troy Daigle http://www.lacdb.com/listing/633944

Address: 3740 Monroe Highway Pineville, LA 71360 Contiguous Space: 19,718 SF Available Space: 1365 SF for lease Entire Property Available for Sale Lease Rate: $18.50 PSF plus CAM Sales Price: $3,185,000 Agent: Kent Walker http://www.lacdb.com/listing/1778102

Address: 20981 Plank Road Zachary, LA 70791 4.04 Acres, or 175,982 SF of useable land 4800 SF Retail/Service Shop 2800 SF Service Shop Barn Sale Price: $945,000 Agent: Alex Knight http://www.lacdb.com/listing/1777852