BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards joined other community leaders Wednesday to highlight a new technology park being constructed on Highland Road.

Edwards along with East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden lauded the new @Highland technology park as a job creator for the Baton Rouge area.

The $20 million capital investment by General Informatics will include a 52,000 square foot three-story office building, a restaurant, retail and residential space at the corner of Highland Road and Bluebonnet Blvd. The office building will house General Informatics, a LSU grown managed IT services company, along with three other business tenants.

“Louisiana is becoming the new destination for high-performing technology companies,” Edwards said. “We also have seen significant growth from tech companies launched in Louisiana, from Fortune 500 companies like CenturyLink to today’s expansion announcement by General Informatics.”

The @Highland project is estimated to create 66 new direct jobs over the next decade with an average of $50,000 salary plus benefits. The Louisiana Economic Development agency estimates that the project will also create 81 new indirect jobs for the Capital City area.

“We see this investment by General Informatics as another step in growing Baton Rouge’s technology base, which in turn grows our local high-tech workforce,” Holden said.

Construction for the office building will be completed by mid-2017.