Shreveport's Downtown Development District has been expanded, thanks to unanimous action by the Louisiana Legislature.

Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Liz Swaine told KEEL News the official boundary of downtown now includes historic buildings owned by Shreveport businessman Ronnie Remedies.

"He went to Representative Roy Burrell and said, 'Hey, I would love to be part, officially, of downtown Shreveport.' And so they did House Bill 124 that sailed through," Swaine said. "And now Ronnie and his great buildings on Marshall Street are officially part of downtown."

Swaine said most people would have passed by the buildings at 1122 and 1200 Marshall and not even noticed them.

"They were sort of non-descript. I think that there was a trailer business that was there, an audio business was there for a while, then they were vacant for a little while," she said. "Ronnie has taken those and he has painted them and redone them and they are fabulous. They're historic buildings to begin with, so they had really good bones. He has done some parking lots and really has just put his heart and soul into those great buildings, and they are returning the love."

Remedies said in a news release that he had several reasons for wanting to be part of downtown.

"The DDA brings a level of support not found in other areas of town and includes marketing, grants, and a great network of governmental support," he said. "They always have exciting things going on and consistently work to get people excited about moving to downtown Shreveport. Being a part of the synergy and positive promotion of downtown will be beneficial to our tenants and help produce a great return on our real estate investment."

A few facts, courtesy of the DDA: 1122 Marshall Street is 2,000 square feet and is fully leased. 1200 Marshall is 50,000 square feet. There is a letter of intent for 26,000 square feet of the warehouse, and the other warehouse space is used by Shreveport Limousine. More than 10,000 square feet of office space is available.

Swaine did tell us there is a big fish on the hook...but she can't tell us what the business is yet.

"We're going to be making a big announcement the first of August about a major new tenant in one of those buildings that everybody is gonna go crazy over," she said. "It's something we've been working to get downtown for at least three years now, we've just never had the perfect location for them. Ronnie's building has been the perfect location. People are gonna go crazy. That's all I can tell ya."

 

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