Young Professionals moving to Baton Rouge (Jefferson, Gardere: gated, apartments, income)

[tgoetzka]

My husband and I are recent graduates and will be looking at moving to BR this summer. We're originally from Memphis (and has caused a reasonable fear of seedy places). We were trying to find an apartment near work, in Port Allen, Plaquemine, or a town in between. There's not much much on the internet on that area though. So we found one on 999 N 9th St. I know it's north of Florida. Is it a bad area? As far as crime, I don't care if we have to stay inside from 9pm till dawn; we just need somewhere that won't get robbed while we're at work. By the way, we're somewhat tired of the party school lifestyle. Any recommendations? Thanks for all your help!

[BRMan]

Originally Posted by tgoetzka

My husband and I are recent graduates and will be looking at moving to BR this summer. We're originally from Memphis (and has caused a reasonable fear of seedy places). We were trying to find an apartment near work, in Port Allen, Plaquemine, or a town in between. There's not much much on the internet on that area though. So we found one on 999 N 9th St. I know it's north of Florida. Is it a bad area? As far as crime, I don't care if we have to stay inside from 9pm till dawn; we just need somewhere that won't get robbed while we're at work. By the way, we're somewhat tired of the party school lifestyle. Any recommendations? Thanks for all your help!

Er, I wouldn't recommend that. Those apartments are right on I-110, and I recall they're kind of seedy. And you're a stones throw away from some dangerous areas. And in general, I think downtown needs more of a critical mass of people before I'd recommend someone live there.

If you don't mind enduring the "new bridge" and its occasionally wacky traffic, you can get an apartment off of Corporate (there are the Cedar Lodge and Gates at Citiplace complexes). There are some older but nice apartments on Foster between College and Claycut.

There's also the option of finding a rent house in Brusly or Addis - those are quiet areas starting to suburbanize.

In general, here are the rules of living in BR: (1) Stay south of Florida, (2) Stay south of LSU, (2) avoid Gardere, (3) avoid Blvd De Province. There are other bad places and exceptions to the rule, but those are the biggies.

[darylwi]

999 N. 9th I believe is the Lakeshore Towers or Capital Towers (not sure). It is downtown. They changed management and remodeled a few years back. They look a lot better than they did 7-8 years ago. They raised rent too which ran out a lot of the riff-raff. It's in Spanish Town neighborhood. It's not a bad area and I don't think the tenants are as bad as I thought they used to be. I believe they gated it now too. The only access though is from the service road, North 9th which is a one way road from Capital Access. So coming from I-110 North you would have to exit to Capital Access and loop back around to N. 9th. Not very far out of the way.
The worst parts to that neighborhood are on the other side of the expressway.
Look them up online, they really have remodeled.

As far as the westbank is concerned, sorry to say there aren't many apartments over there and none are listed on any website. I believe they're all locally owned which can be good and bad depending on what your looking for.
Plaquemine does have a few on Tenant Road, on the backside of town near the high school, but they aren't modern by any means. Maison Deville. Belle Vue Villa is off of the Belleview (which is LA-75) about a block from Sabastian. I remember them being cheap and there weren't many units. Also they border a few shady areas. Plaquemine itself isn't a bad town although it has its small town drug problems. The bad areas include Seymourville which is basically everything southwest of LA-1 and Belleview, i.e. Barrow Street. And also there is a shady area near old Haase Street (which is now W.W. Harleaux) and Iron Farm Road. Funny thing with that is that Labauve Ave is a block from Haase and it's the old high class part of the city.
Addis has a complex or two near LA-1 in town, D'Lberville. Don't know anything about them.
Brusly may have a better option. There's a complex behind the McDonalds/Sonic off of La-1, Riverside Village I think. It's been there forever and I've seen a mix of decent people and a few wierd people coming from it.
Port Allen really doesn't have many good apartment choices as of yet. There are some slum looking ones on Commercial Drive in Westport. Don't bother with these. They do have a few apartments and townhomes in town on Jefferson Avenue but I've heard they're only slightly better. I would probably recommend Plaquemine over Port Allen just because the apartments on Tenant Road are on the backside of town and it's not a bad area (very few houses, mostly open cane fields), just sometimes the occasional rough tenant. To sum it up, the westbank is much better for building or buying a home since space is plentiful. I have plenty of family in Plaquemine and Brusly.
Oh yeah, never had a problem with robberies in Plaquemine (unless it was some low income acquantants stealing from each other, but no break ins that I knew about). Hell, we left door unlocked quite often, but I wouldn't do it now just about anywhere.

Downtown BR is a good choice as well. You are very close to some action, simple bars and clubs, a farmers market on the weekend, the River Center, Shaw Center for the Arts, the Capital, casinos, you name it.

Also La-1 does have a reverse rush hour effect because of the chemical plants. Traffic picks up heading towards the plants (away from BR) between 5-7am, then it flips around and starts picking up heading towards BR. Same thing happens around 3pm, traffic comes towards BR from the plants and around 4-7pm traffic is heading away from BR towards the suburbs (almost a double impact because they overlap). There is a service road and the river road that follow LA-1. You will learn to use these if there ever is an accident blocking the highway somewhere. And if the ICWW bridge is blocked, you're screwed anyway. But that might happen 1 day every few months or so. FYI-Plaquemine doesn't really consider itself a suburb, but it may as well be.

I've definitely written enough.
I'm familiar with that area, so if you have other questions, just let me know.