The Advocate

Gaping potholes, overgrown grass and broken curbs in a north Baton Rouge corridor should receive some TLC this weekend during a beautification project.

City Hall crews and other volunteers will spend 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. this Saturday along the Plank Road and Evangeline Street corridor to help spruce up the area. The cleanup will extend from the Evangeline Street exit off Interstate 110, move east along Evangeline Street to Plank Road and then extend north from Plank Road to Airline Highway.

The well-traversed area is known as the home of Tony’s Seafood and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. A team of students from Cristo Rey Baton Rouge Franciscan High School — also located along that corridor — will help pick up litter. City Hall maintenance crews will mow grass, remove broken curbs, fill potholes, pluck illegal signs and more.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said in a statement Thursday that the community cleanup should remind people to be “stewards of a cleaner community.”

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber, another partner on the project, has repeatedly pushed for local officials to consider “quality of place” to improve Baton Rouge. BRAC is a partner on the cleanup, along with the state’s Department of Transportation and Development and Keep Baton Rouge Beautiful.

BRAC and the mayor’s office held the first of their beautification projects in late 2017 along the College Drive/Perkins Road corridor.

“We remain committed to transforming our city’s quality of place so that our surroundings are just as welcoming to visitors and residents alike as our people and culture,” said BRAC’s President and CEO Adam Knapp in a statement. “Through intentional projects like this, we hope to ingrain policy and practices to support long-term enhancement of the parish’s physical appearance.”