Top 10 things to know about BR’s economy

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jun 14, 2009

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Baton Rouge, with a metro population estimated at 774,000, ranks 67th in size among more than 300 U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Since 2000, Baton Rouge’s population has grown at a cumulative rate of 10 percent.

Several months into 2009, the region’s unemployment rate remained nearly 4 percentage points lower than the national rate, and Baton Rouge ranked 14th best of more than 300 metro areas for job creation, said Adam Knapp, chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.

“The Baton Rouge area economy is stable and growing compared to most of the rest of the country, and we continue to see national and regional positive indicators of its health,” he said.

Jobs

From 2005 to 2006, the Baton Rouge metro area added 21,300 jobs for 6.2 percent gain, spurred by an influx of residents after Hurricane Katrina.

By late 2008, the job growth had slowed, and the effects of a national recession led LSU economists Loren Scott, Jim Richardson and Dek Terrell to revise a two-year economic forecast in October that still had Baton Rouge adding 2,400 net jobs in 2009 — the expected worst year — followed by a 6,800-job gain in 2010. At the end of March, Baton Rouge jobs were up 1,400 compared with a year ago.

Although some firms have announced recent layoffs – including Trinity Marine in Brusly, Dow Chemical Co. in Plaquemine and Capital One and The Advocate in Baton Rouge – a deal reached between the state and The Shaw Group Inc. led the engineering and construction firm to agree to add 150 professional jobs a year during the next decade and to keep its headquarters in Baton Rouge through 2023.

Baton Rouge’s Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United Inc. also completed the first phase of a nearly $200 million expansion near Metro Airport, and digital media firm Electronic Arts Inc. began operating a global testing center for its sports video games, with plans to hire 200 on LSU’s south campus.

Energy

Petroleum refiners and chemical manufacturers continue to plow capital investment into the region, where ExxonMobil employs 4,200 and is building a $500 million expansion to make cleaner-burning diesel fuel. Dow Chemical Co. and its contractors still employ nearly 3,000 workers, and  Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. is investing nearly $2 billion in a pair of new Shintech polyvinyl chloride plants. In Ascension Parish, BASF employs 1,200 and contracts for several hundred more. Entergy Corp. employs 700 at its Riverbend nuclear power plant in West Feliciana Parish, while Louisiana Generating LLC is Pointe Coupee Parish’s biggest private employer with 300 workers at the Big Cajun power plants in New Roads.

Commercial projects

A growing inventory of office and retail projects has entered Baton Rouge, ranging from the recently completed $70 million, 12-story City Plaza II downtown; the $112 million 19th Judicial District Courthouse being built downtown; the $300 million-plus Perkins Rowe complex at Bluebonnet and Perkins; and The Boulevard, a $70 million expansion to the Mall of Louisiana. In 2008, developer Pete Clements announced plans for a $600 million mixed-use project along River Road near Hollywood Casino.