River envy
Sail 250 packed the New Orleans riverfront. Baton Rouge was watching—and hopefully taking notes.
Anyone paying even a modicum of attention to social media over the weekend knows a good portion of Baton Rouge spent it along the New Orleans riverfront enjoying the tall ships in town for Sail 250.
Why it matters: The sheer turnout proved what Baton Rouge's civic leaders have argued and largely failed to deliver since Plan Baton Rouge I: people will show up when a city connects them to its river. This city doesn't do that. Yet.
Sailing into town: Sail 250 brought more than a dozen international tall ships and military vessels to the New Orleans riverfront May 27 through June 1, kicking off a national tour marking the country's 250th anniversary.
- Tens of thousands crowded the levee daily.
- The fireworks Saturday night drew the kind of crowd New Orleans seems to pull at will.
- A significant chunk of it drove from Baton Rouge.
Callin' Baton Rouge: Baton Rouge is the largest city on the Mississippi that does little to connect its downtown to the water, culturally or recreationally.
- Railroad tracks, River Road traffic and the levee itself wall residents off from the river.
- The talk has gone on for decades—through failed tax referendums that would have brought development like Alive to the riverfront, through two iterations of Plan Baton Rouge—and the river remains essentially a backdrop.
The big picture: Plan Baton Rouge III, now approved by the Planning Commission, makes activating the riverfront as the city's "front porch" one of five core objectives.
- A riverwalk loop would connect the riverfront to the USS Kidd Veterans Museum and Shaw Center for the Arts.
- A sports and entertainment complex with a restaurant overlooking the water is among the anchor proposals.
Cautionary tale: The riverfront reimagination carries a hefty price tag—and the present plan lists no publicly funded projects, meaning the private sector is expected to do the heavy lifting. That's a departure from PBR I, where state and philanthropic dollars drove the work and later attracted private investment.
About that ship: Baton Rouge's own warship, the USS Kidd, fully restored after a two-year overhaul, can't even make it home. Low river levels have delayed its return indefinitely—the river giveth and the river taketh.
The bottom line: New Orleans spent a weekend proving what a river can do for a city—and Baton Rouge residents were there to see it firsthand.
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