BATON ROUGE — A major revitalization plan designed to triple downtown Baton Rouge's residential population has been approved by the city's planning commission.

The planning commission approved the Baton Rouge Area Foundation-authored Plan Baton Rouge III at its Monday meeting, marking a key milestone for the plan, which calls for more than $1.5 billion in early investments.

"We've gone 15 years or so without an update to our comprehensive master plan in the downtown area," BRAF's Eric Dexter said. "But we know what we've seen with the successes of Plan Baton Rouge I and II, which resulted in around $3 billion in public and philanthropic investments."

The plan says it will create nearly 5,500 new jobs, attract more than $1 billion in private funding and boost tax revenue by around $37 million over the course of a decade. The plan also predicts that, within the next decade, more than two miles of riverfront property will be developed, as well as seeing 7,350 new residents moving into the area and bringing in an estimated 4.5 million visitors annually.

"The plan is really grounded in a notion of strong community connections," Joshua Brooks, a planner with BRAF's consulting partner Sasaki, said. "At the same time, it really does position downtown as a riverfront city and positions key recommendations about how to use the riverfront that we have."

Brooks explained that the development of downtown will work to serve the broader region, connecting surrounding neighborhoods like Mid City, North Baton Rouge and the areas around both LSU and Southern University. This will be accomplished through improving transportation infrastructure in and around downtown. 

BRAF previously said key recommendations in the plan include a signature riverfront park and entertainment district, expanded housing options across income levels, a downtown transit network and investment in greenways, pedestrian corridors and cultural destinations.

It also emphasizes preserving and repurposing historic buildings, supporting small businesses and year-round programming to activate public spaces.

Attorney Michael Grace, speaking on behalf of property owners of land north of The Queen casino, said his clients opposed the project, which reimagines the area as a youth sports and entertainment complex. He said that he opposed seeing it redeveloped for recreational use, but Planning Commission Director Ryan Holcomb said that the proposal does not rezone the properties.

The commission approved BRAF's proposed plan with no objections from its members.

The Metro Council will hear the plan on June 17 before it is formally adopted into FuturEBR, the parish's overall comprehensive development plan.