Run-down Earl K. Long Medical Center site gets new owner; see plans for what it could become
Written by Lara Nicholson, The Advocate
Nov 10, 2023
The East Baton Rouge Housing Authority announced Friday it has acquired the former Earl K. Long Medical Center site from Louisiana State University, and plans to convert the abandoned space into a mixed-use development with senior housing and retail.
Plans are in the works for a North Park subdivision, which will include 113 apartments and about 8,400 square feet of commercial retail space in North Baton Rouge, according to documents submitted to the East Baton Rouge Parish Planning Commission.
“Our ambitious transformation plan for this property will leverage partnerships and collaboration, giving new life to this disinvested area,” said authority CEO J. Wesley Daniels Jr. in a news release.
The first phase of North Park will also include an East Baton Rouge Parish library branch, a BREC neighborhood park, a YWCA Head Start center, an East Baton Rouge Council on Aging space and a CareSouth clinic.
Partners Southeast, which handles development for the housing authority, and the Banyan Foundation, an Alabama-based nonprofit affordable housing firm, are proposing the redevelopment.
Earl K. Long Medical Center began serving patients in 1968 and provided clinical training to physicians, nurses and health professionals through the LSU Health Care Services Division, according to the Housing Authority. In 2010, LSU partnered with Our Lady of the Lake, Woman's and Lallie Kemp hospitals to provide senior medical facility services.
The medical center permanently shut down in 2013 and was demolished in 2015, spurring "significant signs of disinvestment and abandonment" in the area, according to the Housing Authority.
The Housing Authority has worked to acquire the property for redevelopment since 2013, when Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, who was in the Louisiana Senate at the time, passed a bill directing the sale of the Earl K. Long site to the Housing Authority.
"The sale of the former Earl K. Long property to the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority is another positive mark for our community,” Broome said in a news release Friday. “It demonstrates the power of partnerships to enhance resources for our citizens. Thank you to everyone who is working collectively to envision a refreshing new community with modern housing and quality, life-enhancing resources."
The sale was later approved by the LSU board of supervisors in 2020 and amended in 2022 to allow LSU President William Tate IV the ability to process the sale.
A planning commission vote on the North Park subdivision and its first phase has been deferred to the Dec. 11 meeting.