Real Estate Recap: September 18, 2012

From the Baton Rouge Business Report, Real Estate Weekly:

The sound of silence: Metro Councilman Rodney "Smokie" Bourgeois says he'll recuse himself from voting on a restaurant that is looking to open next to his Perkins Road overpass area restaurant, Georges. City Pork Deli and Charcuterie will likely be before the Metro Council next month for final approval. Bourgeois doesn't appear to have much choice. Section 2.10 of the city-parish plan of government includes a clause prohibiting Metro Council members from voting on items in which they have a "personal or pecuniary interest." Daily Report has the full story here.

Au revoir: Privé Lingerie Boutique is closing its doors at Towne Center today for the final time. "It's been five years, and it's time to move on," owner Heather Savoy says, noting her niche boutique stumbled with the stagnant economy a few years ago and hadn't fully recovered. "It just doesn't make a lot of sense to keep doing it." Savoy says she's going back to work in residential real estate full-time—which she did for 12 years prior to opening Privé in 2007. Towne Center spokeswoman Rebecca Rainer says the shopping center is currently in the final stages of negotiations with two new undisclosed tenants. If both potential tenants do move in, Rainer says, Towne Center will be 100% occupied.

8 years in the making: Since 2004, the Port of Greater Baton Rouge has been piecing together a large tract of land along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. As of today, port director Jay Hardman says, they're just one signature shy of obtaining the last piece of an almost 405-acre puzzle. More than a dozen heirs owned various pieces of the tract. "It'll be a good fit for the port today, as well as for future growth in years to come," says Hardman, who adds that the port commission approved the expansion unanimously. "We're pretty well filled up [currently]. We don't have a lot of green space here at all." The total cost of the tract was nearly $6.5 million in self-generated funds; the port does not receive a tax-based revenue stream.