Oct 3, 2006

Visit to N.C. whets appetite for BR growth

By GARY PERILLOUX
Advocate business writer
Published: Sep 28, 2006

Advocate staff photo by Arthur D. Lauck Dr. Greg Stone leads the Coastal Studies Institute at LSU, the type of research that needs support. Chamber executive Stephen Moret said the university should be better supported to raise LSU’s profile in academic and corporate circles.

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Fresh from the mind-bending world of North Carolina’s Research Triangle, a Baton Rouge Area Chamber contingent has returned to wrestle with the big picture of regional development at home.

Recruiting the world’s most-skilled scientists, artists and entrepreneurs to raise Baton Rouge to a higher plane means there’s much work to be done on the little things. That’s perhaps the biggest lesson learned in North Carolina by 140 delegates, who brainstormed the experience.

Great growth, they said, can come from leveraging existing assets:

• A downtown entertainment district can muster thousands of convention guests, tourists and locals to create a sense of fun and excitement about Baton Rouge’s quality of life.
• Thriving hospitality businesses will generate more retail sales to support public road and building projects.
• A progressive residential project — one like the Hope VI development in Old South Baton Rouge — can reduce eyesores and raise prospects for more inner-city investment.
• Property values appreciate from pioneering housing developments, raising more capital to boost public schools.
• But paramount in today’s competitive economy is this notion: The cream of any community will rise with an investment in its best and brightest. It’s a point Baton Rouge chamber Chief Executive Stephen Moret hammered home in the final brainstorming session this week at Duke University.

Since 1970, the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina has added 100,000 more jobs to its economy than has Baton Rouge.

That calculates to a cool $4.5 billion in additional income at Raleigh-Durham’s disposal, Moret said.

And much of the gained wealth grew from developing three institutions — Duke, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University — into top-flight research schools.

LSU, while pre-eminent in Louisiana, isn’t among the Top 100 research universities.

“I’m telling you guys, we’ve got to get this LSU piece done,” Moret told the BRAC group in championing heavier state funding, rigorous fund-raising campaigns and higher tuition to raise LSU’s profile in academic and corporate circles. “In Austin and Raleigh, they built on the research strengths they have in the region. And therefore, a lot of the things we’d like to have, we’re not competitive on yet.”

Universities that are true research engines spend twice as much on students, compared with LSU.

“There’s a gulf between them and LSU,” Moret said.

Several participants on the chamber’s North Carolina trip also urged enhanced recruitment of public schoolteachers, augmented by incentives for prospective teachers to choose Baton Rouge schools.

Not every growth idea will be popular, but tough choices need to be made in education, planning and quality of life, Rene Greer said.

“I think sometimes as leaders we always seem to try to do the popular thing instead of leading,” she said. “… Sometimes, leaders just need to lead.”

Story originally published in The Advocate