Renovated Youth City Lab’s first phase opens this spring
A stage for poetry slams. A youth-run bike repair shop. Meeting rooms for kids and adult mentors. A barber college and teaching kitchen. A safe place to hang out after school.
These and other amenities are part of the forthcoming Youth City Lab on Government Street, an ambitious collaboration between four local nonprofits that is inching closer to completion. The project is transforming the former Sarkis Oriental Rugs store into a vibrant, 10,000-square-foot center for youth with multiple enrichment, social and workforce development programs.
In April, the first floor should be completed and occupied, leaders say.
“It’s a space where kids can experience some joy and connectivity,” says Dustin LaFont, executive director of partner nonprofit Front Yard Bikes. “It’s been a long time coming but we’re getting close.”
Teaming with Front Yard Bikes is mentoring program Big Buddy, barbershop-based literacy organization Line 4 Line, and Humanities Amped, a school-based program that teaches high school students about healing and civic engagement through creativity and research.
The partners purchased the Government Street building in 2020 and have been raising funds since then to turn it into a youth-centric haven.
“That’s the one thing people constantly complain about,” LaFont says. “There are not enough places for young people to go.”
Mid City architecture firm Street Collaborative designed an open, airy floorplan that allows youth to check in at a welcome desk, then head to different areas for programs.
Dappled light streams through the building’s stained glass windows, a feature nodding to its past life as the Central Assembly of God church. The design maintains the building’s character while creating a two-story campus where young people are empowered to foster relationships, practice their creativity and hone skills for future careers.
The building will be home to Front Yard Bikes’ retail and repair shop, which was previously set up here before the renovation. The entrepreneurial nonprofit trains kids to fix bikes and rewards them with a bike of their own.
It will also host Line 4 Line’s barber college—along with the nonprofit’s many creative literacy programs. Founded in 2014 in a North Acadian Thruway barber shop, Line 4 Line fosters literacy through free haircuts.
The renovated facility will enable Humanities Amped to host its “Fresh Heat” open mic nights. Attendees can take a seat on sprawling stadium seating and listen to Humanities Amped’s budding poets, writers, rappers and singers perform across a new stage.
And on the second floor, Big Buddy will operate a teaching kitchen where pairs of Big and Little Buddies can cook healthy meals together. The program’s high school students can also earn ServSafe certification for future restaurant industry careers.
Once fully open, the youth-centric facility will solve a fundamental problem for the four nonprofits, its leaders say.
“All of our programs are challenged by not having space,” says Big Buddy executive director Gaylynne Mack. “We are all constantly moving from site to site. We spend an enormous amount of time finding space to help young people get their needs met, so this is going to be a game changer.”
The costly project has been slow-going at times, with fundraising sometimes stalling and post-pandemic construction costs soaring. But Line 4 Line director Lucy Parera says the team has remained committed to collaboration.
“We’ve met every week for the last five years,” she says. “The process has been amazing. It sounds cliché, but we’ve walked the walk.”
The team also includes a Youth Advisory Council, created to garner feedback from teenagers. Advisory council member and Baton Rouge Magnet High School senior Imani Morris says involving teens was a smart move.
“The whole point of the building is to be a place for youth, so it’s very important that they get our opinions,” says the college-bound Morris, who plans to major in marketing. “I appreciate that, because sometimes we see things that they may not see.”
The Youth Advisory Council chose the name “Youth City Lab,” its color scheme and logo. Members have also weighed in on the design, recommending each nonprofit maintain its own identity, while creating flexible areas where kids can hang out, work on homework and take advantage of free Wi-Fi.
They also recommended salvaging an outdoor courtyard, says council member Chad Burnes Jr., also a Baton Rouge Magnet High School senior.
“A lot of students are just cooped up all day in school or in their house, so it was important that they have the freedom to go outside,” says Burnes, who hopes to go into medicine.
The teens have also encouraged preserving details that preserve the distinct structure’s character.
“One of my favorite parts of this building is the stained glass, and the fact that it’s just been here for so long,” says Cadie Perret, a Baton Rouge Magnet High School junior with an interest in fine art. “Devoting a space like this to youth is really going to help draw them to the organization.”
What’s inside
The youth-run bike retail and repair shop will return to the newly renovated space this spring, welcoming the public and youth interested in bike repair skills.
One of the region’s oldest mentoring programs is fundraising to open a second-floor teaching kitchen where Big and Little Buddies can cook together and teens can earn restaurant industry certifications. Big Buddy will use the building for other programs as well.
The literacy nonprofit, which provides free haircuts to kids and trains teens in barbering, is raising funds to open a state-certified barber college inside Youth City Lab. It will also use classroom space for creative literacy programs.
This spring, the Tara High School-based nonprofit will host its “Fresh Heat” series for teen writers and performers on a newly completed stage with stadium seating on the building’s first floor.
This article was originally published in the March 2026 issue of 225 Magazine.
