BATON ROUGE (AP) — The Water Institute of the Gulf's headquarters will be a futuristic feat of glass and metal that's propped up above the Mississippi River, according to a rendering released Monday shows.
The Advocate’s Andrea Gallo reports construction of the $22 million headquarters, research and interpretative center will start later this year.
But the headquarters is the iconic piece of the three. It will light up the old city dock, where it will reach out into the river like a lower-level neighbor to the Mississippi River Bridge.
"We wanted to create something that was really iconic for the Baton Rouge skyline, something everyone could see as they came over the bridge and something that would make the Water Campus recognizable all over the world," said Tina Rance, marketing director for Commercial Properties Realty Trust, which is developing and managing the campus.
The 33,000-square-foot building will be home to an interpretive gallery, exhibits, offices, research labs and meeting rooms. Rance said the building's funding is coming from a mix of public and private investment, though she said she was unsure how the financing was broken down.
The developers expect to finish construction on the headquarters by July 2017.
The property will be one of few developments actually on the waterfront of the Mississippi, though downtown Baton Rouge has grown in waterfront adjacent property over the last decade.
The current buildings are only the tip of the iceberg for what's to come in a planned 33-acre center for research and water science.
Future phases of Water Campus planning include mixed-use and commercial space, which would transform the campus into a place where people can live, dine and play as well as work.
