When it opened 20 years ago, Towne Center in Cedar Lodge changed Baton Rouge’s retail landscape – 225 Baton Rouge

• From Holly Dihaman
• February 1, 2025

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AS 225 It celebrates its 20th anniversary, we will project other organizations and enterprises that celebrate the main stages in 2025.

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Like many local Baton Rougeans, developer Stephen Keller, began his career in Texas and went home to raise his family. When he returned in 1999, he would make frequent drives to Baton Rouge Airport in Sofia to fly in corporate offices in Houston. He often passed the horse farm farm for Arabs on the living oak of Witter on the Jefferson highway.

“It was 60 acres in the city center all roads were touring,” Keller recalls. “I was familiar with the development in Houston. It took me some time to collect things. … I approached the family with a deal. “

This deal will become the Towne Center in Cedar Lodge, a shopping center built on the site of the horse farm. Today, it hosts nearly seven dozen enterprises, with several emblematic national brands calling it at home. It has helped set the standard of living and retail development standard in the metropolitan region over the last two decades.

Keller’s Creekstone companies purchased 48 acres along the east end of the Phil Witer Jefferson Highway in 2003 and began construction. The name of the development of the lifestyle – the Cedar Lodge Town Center – is the tip of the hat to the Cedar Lodge plantation, the previous name of the sites.

Specialty Food Whole Foods supermarkets opened their doors to anchor the center in November 2005, while other emblematic national brands such as Nike, Ulta Beauty, Black Market on the White House and a variety S

Patrons can also shop from a collection of retailers in Louisiana such as Queen Bee, Pipsy librarian and Rickey Heroman’s Florist & Gifts.

A remarkable aspect of the center, says Keller, is that there is no back to the property-there is outdoor shopping on both sides, with the shops extending outside the Jefferson highway and the corporate boulevard, as well as the internal development center.

No longer Spanish moss -covered horses, Towne Center has expanded over the years to include offices for bank and financial services, a business park and a hotel in the 30 acres property.

As the Earth broke more than 20 years ago on the project, the development of lifestyle continues to grow.

This year, construction should start by the standard in Cedar Lodge, a 286-apartment community, which will be located behind the restaurants.

“We can have people who live in the center of Town,” says Keller, “And an attempt to go to restaurants and retail trade – and to have the full experience of the community.”

Towne Center, by the numbers

78

Number of companies located in the center of Towne

$ 110 million+

Tenant sales in 2023

9

Number of buyers of establishments can choose, with Zea Rotisserie & Bar being the latest opening

698,000

An estimated number of people who visit Towne Center each year, representing 3.5 million visits

Sources: Trade Firm for Real Estate JLL, Stephen Keller

This article was originally published in the issue of February 2025 of 225 MagazineS