The Baton Rouge Metro Council voted to approve a new arena for Louisiana State University sports and concerts Wednesday under the condition that the Raising Cane’s River Center restrict its live music and entertainment events to 3,500 attendees for the next 30 years.
As reported by the The Advocate of Baton Rouge, the new ordinance passed by a vote of 10 to 1 with one abstention after a contentious two-hour discussion. The River Center arena will be redeveloped to cater to conventions, with a new hotel attached to the property.
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LSU’s Tiger Athletic Foundation, the private arm of the university’s athletic program, plans to build a new on-campus arena costing between $350 million and $400 million with up to 13,000 seats. The arena is expected to replace the 50-year-old Pete Maravich Assembly Center and house the city’s large concerts.
To carry out the plan, city-parish officials were asked to limit potential competition between the proposed arena and the River Center by capping River Center events. Sporting events such as hockey will have a separate cap of 8,500 attendees, while the newly renovated River Center theater, with 1,999 seats and an exhibition hall, is exempt from the requirement, Lara Nicholson of The Advocate reported.
Council members in support of the ordinance said they looked forward to the prospect of bringing bigger headline acts to Baton Rouge with a larger arena and that converting the River Center into a convention space would revitalize business in downtown Baton Rouge.
“We as a downtown have more to benefit with the River Center in conventions,” councilman Aaron Moak said, as reported by Nicholson. “You come in for an arena, you go see Garth Brooks in New Orleans, you’re there for one night. You got a world-class convention center … I’m there for the week.”
A study completed in August by consulting firm Conventions, Sports and Leisure International recommended the city-parish complete $80 million to $95 million in arena renovations and construct a new convention hotel to attach to the property. The city-parish has already poured at least $30 million into the River Center over the past decade, including replacing seating in 2023, renovating the theater in 2022 and putting taxpayer money into past winning bids and incentives to host the United States Bowling Congress and the Miss USA pageant.
The new LSU arena is expected to open in five years.
Critics took issue with the ordinance, questioning its legality and citing the potential of Baton Rouge losing out on concerts that coincide with LSU sporting events or events with more than 3,500 attendees that aren’t quite big enough for a large arena. An alternative suggestion involved allowing the River Center to have concerts of any size when the LSU arena is booked, or to execute the agreement through a booking policy letter agreement rather than an ordinance, Nicholson reported.
The Parish Attorney’s office also sent the Metro Council an opinion saying the ordinance read like a “one-sided contract,” and that the 30-year time period had “the potential to devastate the city-parish's economic development and hope of growth initiatives.”
