Bond Sale for Inner Loop, Nursing School Authorized

              Bond sale for Inner Loop,
nursing school authorized
By RONNI PATRIQUIN
Journal Capital Bureau
BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana
Bond Commission this morning au-thorized
state bond officials to go to
the bond market Sept. 14 to finance
$120.9 million in state construction
projects including additional work on
the Shreveport Inner Loop Ex-pressway
and construction of the
Northwestern State University School
of Nursing in Caddo Parish.
Also, the commission approved in-dustrial
revenue bond sales for three
projects sponsored by the Industrial
Development Board of the Parish of
Caddo and one project authorized by
the Industrial Development Board of
the Town of Homer.
Bond officials said this morning
they are very optimistic about the
proposed sale of state general obliga-tion
bonds because "the bond market
has improved dramatically" recently.
Because of that improvement and
upon the recommendation of its Ex-ecutive
Director Tom Burbank, the
commission issued lines of credit for
all of the state projects which cur-rently
are ready to be bid.
"With the improvement in the bond
market, there hopefully will not be
any lines of credit left over if we are
successful with our bond sale on Sept.
14," Burbank said.
The $120.9 million state bond issue
also includes money needed to reno-vate
the burn and trauma and dietary
units at the Louisiana State Univer-sity
Medical Center in Shreveport, a
number of projects at other
Northwest Louisiana universities and
money for planning the renovations
necessary at the newly established
Louisiana School for Gifted and Tal-ented
in Natchitoches.
The lines of credit issued provided
immediate financing for the $6.9 mil-lion
for the Inner Loop Expressway
from Interstate 20 to Jewella Avenue;
$1 million for the school of nursing;
$750,000 for the School for Gifted and
Talented; $2 million for constructing
a Forestry, Wildlife and Plant Sci-ence
Complex at Louisiana Tech Uni-versity
in Ruston.
The commission also authorized an
additional expenditure of $2.48 mil-lion
on the school of nursing next
year. That line of credit will allow the
contracts to be let even though none
of that $2.48 million can be spent this
year.
The local industrial revenue bond
projects approved this morning in-clude:
• $645,000 for the Cochran and
Glover Project to renovate a his-torical
building at 505 Common as a
multiple-tenant office building. The
project is expected to result in 50
construction jobs, 35 permanent jobs
and a $1 million annual payroll.
$900,000 for the Industrial
Showcase Center Project to construct
and renovate a warehouse in
Shreveport producing 48 construction
jobs and 58 permanent jobs with an
$800,000 annual payroll.
• $1.4 million to finance the ac-quisition
and renovation of a his-torical
building at 308 Market as a
multiple occupant office building.
This will produce between 60 and 80
construction jobs and between 13 and
24 permanent jobs with an estimated
annual payroll of between $265,000
and $380,000.
The Homer project approved today
provides $1.36 million in industrial
revenue bonds for constructing the
first phase of the McLemore Shopping
Center project, which will provide 50
construction jobs and more than 100
permanent jobs.