Stephanie Riegel for the Baton Rouge Business Report | July 7, 2015

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is selling its downtown headquarters at 402 N. Fourth St.—a three-story, 19,376-square foot office building it constructed in 2007. The listing price is $4.08 million, or $210 per square foot. Realtor Hank Saurage is listing the building and says demand for the property is strong.

“We have a few very interested buyers we are working with,” he says. “We have identified a half dozen potential buyers for this property and other buildings in the downtown market. Activity is heating up.”

Saurage declines to comment on why BRAF is selling the building or where the foundation and its for-profit real estate company, Commercial Properties Realty Trust, might be moving. But in a statement to Daily Report, BRAF confirms it is relocating to the new IBM riverfront tower, where both the foundation and CRPT will occupy the top floor of the nine-story building.

The new space is 23,000 square feet—more than the entire BRAF building on Fourth Street and will enable BRAF and CPRT to almost double the amount of usable room the two entities have for their combined staff of nearly 50, the statement says.

Commercial Properties is developing the IBM building and the adjacent residential tower, 525 Lafayette, as part of a deal that was confected to help bring IBM to Baton Rouge. Later this month, law firm Fishman Haygood will move into the eighth floor of the building.


Hank Saurage obtained his Real Estate Sales License in 1984, followed shortly thereafter by his Real Estate Broker’s License in 1986. To further expand his business, he then obtained his Real Estate Broker’s License in Mississippi in 1997. In 1990, Hank earned the CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member) designation from the Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute. He is also a member of the Louisiana Commercial Data Base (LACDB), the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), and the Greater Baton Rouge Association of REALTORS® Commercial Investment Division (CID).

Saurage Rotenberg Commercial Real Estate is a member of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce (BRAC); the West Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce; the Baton Rouge Better Business Bureau; the Louisiana Commercial Data Base (LACDB); and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). Several agents, on an individual basis, are members of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors® (SIOR), the Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute (CCIM); the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR); and the Greater Baton Rouge Association of REALTORS® Commercial Investment Division (CID).