A Former Carpetbaggers View

Tom Bethell has penned an article in The American magazine about the progress of rebuilding in New Orleans a former resident. Rather than comment on it, I prefer to highlight certain passages that I think are to the point of our current rebuilding process.

On employment:

On the subject of New Orleans, [Tommy Lemann] was cautious and judicious, sometimes insisting that he not be quoted. There’s a labor shortage, he said, and this is possibly the city’s most serious problem. Many positions are unfilled, and shop windows all over the city have “Help Wanted” signs. New workers need housing, but there is also a housing shortage. To get housing, you need a job. So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I was to hear others mention the same apparent conundrum.

Activity at the Port of New Orleans is back up to pre-Katrina levels, and law firms “are doing pretty well from what I hear,” Tommy Lemann said. “So much business is coming out of Katrina.” Tulane University had a lot of damage, and freshman enrollment fell. But it has been sustained at the professional schools. According to the indispensable Katrina Index, published by Brookings, Tulane started the 2006–07 school year with four-fifths the number of students it had before Katrina. “It would be adverse if we couldn’t get the young professionals to stay,” he said.

Americans got a televised taste of that culture at the convention center after the storm. As some Orleanians pointed out, the scenes were probably not so different from those that prevail on any other day—minus the dreadful shortage of food and water—in the worst parts of the city’s housing projects. Katrina drove many of the poor to cities (possibly as many as 100,000 to Houston ) with a stronger work ethic and a different attitude toward welfare. In October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its final post-Katrina report, said that the unemployment rate among displaced evacuees was 17.9 percent, down from 34.7 percent in March; by contrast, the rate among return evacuees had actually risen, from 5.3 percent to 7 percent.

What no one says in public, but is widely conceded in private, is that, while tragic in many ways, the storm’s displacement of families may, in fact, encourage greater independence and better lives for the refugees. In New Orleans, many of them had become inured to state support and its perverse incentives.

On housing:

I had already read plenty about the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward, in the part of the city east of the French Quarter, so I wondered if he could recommend some other, less advertised destination in the Tour of Ruin that is on every visiting journalist’s itinerary. Tommy Lemann suggested Metairie Club Gardens, “the most affluent flooded area of town.” Submerged under five feet of water, it is the only place where he has seen abandoned mansions. The owners in some cases are up in years, and don’t want to rebuild, he said, or they have no mortgages and are rich enough to move elsewhere. Or they worry that the area will flood again.

On population:

The population of the city, about 450,000 pre-Katrina, is now estimated at around 200,000. New Orleans may now be the second-largest city in Louisiana (Baton Rouge is probably first). The labor force in the New Orleans metropolitan area, which also includes suburban Jefferson Parish, has dropped from 640,000 before Katrina to 438,000 last October, according to Brookings. In the latest U.S. Census estimate, Louisiana had lost five percent of its population, a quarter-million people, mostly to Texas and Georgia.

New Orleans probably has a smaller population today than it had in 1880, when, with 216,000 people, it was the tenth-largest city in the United States, just behind San Francisco and ahead of Cleveland and Detroit. An article in The Times-Picayune—a transformed newspaper since the 1970s, with copious and excellent post-Katrina coverage—reported before Christmas that 84,000 residents have moved to Atlanta. Many went by car (unlike Houston, to which refugees were herded in buses), and “significant numbers” are doing well. “They consider themselves Georgians and say so.” It seems likely that many will not return.

The racial composition of the city has changed since the storm. Because black areas suffered more destruction and because many blacks lacked the means to resettle in New Orleans after Katrina, the African-American share of the population of the city, according to a survey commissioned by state agencies last summer, has fallen from 67 percent to about 46 percent. By income, Orleans Parish, which is contiguous with the city, was the eighth-poorest county in America before the storm, and New Orleans over the years has maintained an entrenched culture of poverty and entitlement, epitomized by its vast public-housing projects.

On commerce:

Next, I contacted Jeannette Hardy, a veteran journalist who, years ago, was the editor of The Courier, the alternative weekly where I published my first articles. Ginny later became editor of New Orleans, the city magazine, and then joined The Times-Picayune. She drove me uptown to a coffee shop on Magazine Street. Between the Mississippi and St. Charles Avenue, Magazine Street is well located, and it is thriving. The neighborhood is a swath of cafés, bakeries, restaurants, antique stores, and clothing boutiques that runs five miles. Lately called the “isle of denial” because it was so little affected by Katrina (though it suffered serious wind damage), the area is likely to be central to the city’s recovery in the years ahead.

“This town is traumatized and everyone in it, including me,” Hardy said as we sat down to coffee. Katrina’s aftermath was “so much bigger than one poor little city can deal with—a poor, divided city with different cultural values.” People are paying mortgages on houses that don’t exist anymore for fear of ruining their credit ratings, she said. “New Orleans needs Washington. We need a Marshall Plan. We did it for Germany. Why not New Orleans?”

On "the Mexicans":

Hardy’s roofer moved his whole family to the city, she said, and electricians, plumbers, and painters are doing well. “A new class of entrepreneurs in the building trade is making a great contribution.” She admires the Hispanics who have come pouring in. In December, newspapers reported an immigrant “baby boom,” almost all Latino. Two healthcare units that saw over 1,200 pregnant women in 2006 said that virtually all were Hispanic. “Before the storm, only 2 percent were Hispanic,” the head nurse in Metairie said. “Now about 96 percent are.”

According to the Louisiana health and population Survey, the number of Latinos living in households in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes has increased by about 20 percent since 2004, even as the total population of the two parishes has fallen by 25 percent.

On restaurants:

Although tourism has lagged, conventions are beginning to return, and, according to the Brookings study, 89 percent of the hotels have reopened, as well as nearly all the well-known restaurants, such as Galatoire’s, Antoine’s, and Brennan’s, and the best relative newcomers, such as Emeril’s and Herbsaint. A friend was in town shortly after the gala reopening of Galatoire’s on New Year’s Day 2006 and said it was the same as ever, with local socialites and artists spending entire Friday afternoons drinking Myer’s Rum and soda and dining on trout amandine and oysters en brochette. Antoine’s, the most famous restaurant in the city, which opened in 1840, reopened just four months after Katrina. Since then, however, it has lost about $5,000 a day, according to a report in The Chicago Tribune. Commander’s Palace, in the Garden District, did not reopen until November, more than a year after the hurricane.

On Nagin:

The mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, concluded that he could not prevent people from spending their own money to rebuild their own homes—probably a wise judgment, politically and economically, although The Washington Post has criticized the “helter-skelter return of residents.” Likewise, The New York Times reported in August that City Hall “has settled back into its habitual easygoing rhythms; a well-placed insider there reported, with alarm, no sense of urgency among its officials.” But was inactivity so alarming? The good news is that it indicated that nothing too authoritarian was in the works.

On Couhig:

The leading Republican candidate in the mayor’s race was Rob Couhig, a lawyer with offices not far from the Superdome and City Hall. He came in fourth and threw his support to Nagin in the final round, declaring that the Landrieu clan had failed the city. One morning, I went to see Couhig, who told me that his office building at 1100 Poydras—just down the street from Mother’s Restaurant, famous for its Ferdi poor boy sandwiches—is full, and his firm is looking for more space.

About $25 billion in federal money will be spent in New Orleans in the next five years, he said. “The money is already in place.” He thinks that the fortunes of the city will depend more on the port, the universities, and a revival of the medical community (now much reduced) than on tourism.

“Our biggest need today is people,” he said. “We need fifty thousand people. There are employment opportunities for everyone from accountants to zookeepers.” But he is concerned that the powers-that-be have misdirected their talent search. Governor Blanco, for example, in a recent session of the state legislature, allocated hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds to attract a new German-owned steel mill with 3,000 jobs.

“But we don’t need jobs; we need people,” Couhig said.

On education:

I came away from the two schools impressed at the turnaround. Katrina has put one of the nation’s most retrograde school systems in the vanguard of reform. Currently, a significant majority of New Orleans public schools are charters, and that condition—different from any other large district in America—is likely to continue. A recent report estimates that 31 charter schools, enrolling 16,000 students, will be operating in the 2007–08 academic year, compared with 17 conventional public schools, enrolling 9,000 students.

As to whether charter schools can make a permanent difference, it is too early to say. Many of the students come from backgrounds that are hostile to learning. Can a relaxation of bureaucratic rules and the introduction of competition overcome that disadvantage?

Summary:

The question is whether the aftermath of Katrina—filled with both bureaucratic foul-ups and individual enthusiasm, hard work, and perseverance—has at last dispelled the inculcated passivity and victimhood that have been especially strong in New Orleans.

Looking back, I was reminded of something that Tripp Friedler had said. A familiar metaphor occurred to him as we spoke, and he applied it to New Orleans. It’s the story of the frog dropped into water that is being heated slowly. It doesn’t notice, fails to react, and dies. Turn the heat up suddenly, however, and the frog jumps out. In New Orleans, the deterioration has been going on for decades, and, on the whole, the city’s leadership, too absorbed both by Mardi Gras balls and racial politics, refused to acknowledge it. Then came Katrina, abruptly turning up the heat.

A change for the better could no longer be avoided. My impression, after a week in the city, is that it has begun.

Baby's First Steps

Mid-City may the home of New Orleans' largest retail development.

A Georgia development company has been quietly working to assemble a vast swath of Mid-City, including the Lindy Boggs Medical Center, to create a nearly contiguous 20-acre site for 1.2 million square feet of retail space for national chains that until now have been unable to find a home inside the city.

The site being assembled by Victory Real Estate Investments LLC is huge, covering more than half a square mile from Jefferson Davis Parkway to Carrollton Avenue and from Toulouse to Bienville streets.

A second phase being discussed would involve an additional 9 acres on the lake side of North Carrollton, across the street from Sav-A-Center. Victory owns the Sav-A-Center and the former Winn-Dixie store that was converted into a small Home Depot last year.

The project has been well below the radar, with few city officials aware of it aside from Councilwoman Shelley Midura. Midura has been briefed on the project and is working closely with the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, which has been playing a behind-the-scenes watchdog role on the development.

Many New Orleanean's have been reluctant to embrace national retail chains locating in the city because of the suburban nature of their developments and its incompatibility with the urban fabric of New Orleans.

But if the developers are willing to be flexible in their designs, they may be greeted with open arms.

"We don't want a suburban-style development plopped in the middle of an urban area," association member Janet Ward Pease said.

Jennifer Weishaupt, chairwoman of the association's newly formed economic development committee, said the association became aware of a potential Home Depot or Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for the Bohn Ford vicinity in November 2005. In January 2006, it discovered the developer was Victory and expressed concerns over the project. It began meeting with Victory President Alton Darby and Vice President Kent Cost about their plans.

She said the association was blunt in telling the executives this go-round that if they "even mention Wal-Mart," the group wasn't going to meet with them about the plans for the 20-acre parcel. The company then showed association members its plans and asked the association to keep the information confidential.

Victory has asked the association to develop a list of what neighbors must have in the development and other things they'd like to see, Weishaupt said. The group met Thursday to begin working on the list.

The importance of this development is that it may be a baby step toward the New Urbanism concept of cities being walkable. Although not truly walkable for everyone in Mid-City, it will be an immense improvement for residents now not to have to drive to neighboring parishes to do their shopping. With some forward thinking, this could spawn other, smaller retail developments scattered throughout the area along with schools, medical clinics and parks could be the genesis of the vision of what New Urbanists have been dreaming of.

Katrina Marina

South Shore Harbor, heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina will be slowly returning to life.

In January the marina's landlord, the Orleans Levee District, launched a massive salvage operation that has fished nearly 100 boats and 550 tons of debris from the harbor floor. With that effort winding down, levee district officials say they hope to begin rebuilding by month's end, with full restoration scheduled for late next year.

Before the storm, the sprawling, 80-acre complex in eastern New Orleans was a cash cow for the district. The $4.6 million a year in lease payments and gambling fees from a floating casino docked there and more than $500,000 in slip fees from boat owners constituted more than 20 percent of the agency's operating budget.

But by listening to the news media, one would think that there would be no need for a marina, what with the city being destroyed and all.

But...

...with demand for dock space at an all-time high in the metropolitan New Orleans area, officials hope that an improved marina will bump rental revenue from close to 500 boat slips as high as $900,000.

"Once the repair work is completed, we feel like we'll have a state-of-the-art facility," said Louis Capo, the district's managing director. "All the piers will be rebuilt. We'll have new electrical and plumbing systems and new lighting. I think we'll have no problem filling all the spaces."

Capo said his optimism is fueled by a waiting list of more than 100 boat owners looking to lease dock space inside the little-damaged Orleans Marina at West End, also owned and operated by the levee district. Adding to the pressure is the slow recovery of the adjacent city-owned Municipal Yacht Harbor, which remains out of commission.

For those reasons, Capo said he expects South Shore Harbor's occupancy rate to jump quickly to 100 percent, from 90 percent pre-Katrina. The levee district plans to maintain annual slip rentals at their prestorm rates, which ranged from about $1,600 to $6,400.

Plus, plans are already underway for repairs to be made.

The first step in the rehabilitation project will be the 26 covered boat slips on the marina's northwest corner.

Capo said a request for construction bids should go out in the next week or two. The timetable calls for work to start by June and the first tenants to move in by October.

A much larger project to restore the infrastructure that can accommodate more than 450 boat slips is not likely to start until late summer. While that work is expected to take more than a year, Capo said, the levee district hopes to open the marina in phases in an effort to address the needs of boaters and to begin generating money for the cash-strapped agency.

I only hope that this recovery doesn't turn into a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour.

Y'all Come Back Now, Y'hear

New Orleans is currently hosting the 2007 HiMSS Convention and visitors are pleasantly surprised by the status of the city.

Ronald Shamlaty Jr. traveled to New Orleans this week by way of the Biloxi airport. As he moved westward in his rental car from Mississippi to Slidell to eastern New Orleans, he was arrested by the devastation that suddenly came into view from the interstate.

"As we went over the bridges," Shamlaty said, referring to the Twin Spans, "we noticed apartment complexes just destroyed, their windows all boarded up. What really got us -- we got that frog-in-the-throat thing -- was seeing all the trailers still there a year and a half later."

Shamlaty said he didn't know what to expect from New Orleans when he came to town this week for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual convention, which brought 24,600 visitors to the city.

What he found was two different worlds compressed into one city: a perimeter of devastation encircling neighborhoods like the French Quarter and the Warehouse District that survived Hurricane Katrina largely unscathed. For him, the divide between the city's tourist playground and its other neighborhoods was surreal.

"The French Quarter is almost like a mirage," Shamlaty said. "What we are seeing here is not what is going on elsewhere in the city."

The two different worlds most aptly describes the city as it stands now. But the lead of the story is that visitors can be our best ambassadors to the rest of the world. People need to know that the city is not as the media likes to portray it. The Lower Ninth Ward makes for good copy but that is not the entire city. The fact that I'm currently blogging from the CBD, walking distance from the Convention Center, should tell you something about the state of our city.

Wrecking Krewe

The Lake Forest Plaza Mall is finally meeting the wrecking ball. After being closed for the past year and a half and empty (except for a couple of stores) for several years prior, developers are now finding use for the existing site.

The Plaza's owners have closed their deal with Lowe's, and demolition of the entire mall -- with the exception of the closed 12-screen Grand Theatre -- is already under way. The Lowe's store is slated to open by the end of 2007, perhaps even by the fall, Lowe's Regional Vice President Debbie Hobbs-Singletary said. She also confirmed that the Lowe's on Elysian Fields Avenue has become the best-performing site in the 1,375-store chain.

Doing business as Lake Forest Plaza LLC, mall owners Ashton Ryan and Gowri Kailas said they are using a loan to pay for the demolition of the 1.1 million-square-foot damaged and vacant mall, but said they weren't allowed to identify the lender.

A Lowe's corporate spokeswoman Monday declined to discuss financing for the project, as did a regional manager Tuesday.

Lowe's has committed to building its $18.5 million store, and discussions are ongoing with other unidentified retailers that could occupy sites in the new complex, including an electronics chain, a discount retailer, and an unidentified department store. The plan sets aside 225,000 square feet for a discount retailer and 100,000 square feet for a department store.

In addition, about 600,000 square feet of retail or office space will be distributed among nearly two dozen buildings on the site. One parking garage will even have townhouses atop it. A second phase eventually would add even more retail outlets in front of the department store and wrap retail space around two other parking garages.

But this promises to be more than just your average strip mall.

Kailas said plans for the new complex are based on concepts of noted "new urbanist" architect Andres Duany, who has been active in neighborhood planning in the post-Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Whatever the final result is, I think it bodes well that corporations are investing capital in this part of the city.

However, don't be surprised if this deal falls into the pothole.

But a controversial financing mechanism called tax-increment financing, or TIF, might complicate the deal. Under the TIF, part of the future sales taxes generated at Lowe's and the other stores in the new complex would be used to cover the costs of developing much of the planned retail space. Legislation passed in 2003 created a special financing district to help pay for the site's redevelopment by drawing 4 cents of the sales tax for economic development purposes. Kailas said the TIF money is needed for infrastructure improvements and to build 600,000 square feet of retail, office and other construction that will round out the development.

Nagin said the TIF is an option, but he was noncommittal to its use other than to say that "right now this is a self-sustaining project" with all private financing.

TIFs have been highly controversial, and unless they are structured according to legal precedent established by the Louisiana Supreme Court, they also can be difficult to accomplish.

Flying High

A Houston base airline will begin non-stop flight from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

ExpressJet is the first new airline carrier to bring flight service to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005.

The airline will bring back daily nonstop flights to Kansas City, Mo.; Birmingham; Jacksonville, Fla., and the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Service from New Orleans to those cities had not been available since before Katrina.

ExpressJet will also offer nonstop service to Austin and San Antonio.

A spokeswoman for ExpressJet said today that the cities were selected based on market research showing a business demand for daily flight service to those cities, as well as a need for residents who were scattered to those cities by Hurricane Katrina to come back to New Orleans regularly.

“All of these cities are very important to New Orleans doing well,” said Dan Packer, chairman of the New Orleans Aviation Board.

Tourism officials said the new flights are great news for New Orleans’ struggling tourism industry, which before Katrina was responsible for $210 million, or 35 percent, of the city’s operating budget, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“We hope to help you rebuild your town,” ExpressJet spokeswoman Karen Miles told city, airport and tourism officials at a news conference today.

Sean Hunter, New Orleans Interim Director of Aviation, said receiving a new carrier, six new destinations and 12 additional flights per day are significant steps toward returning to pre-Katrina levels of air service.

It will restore flight service to about 75 percent of pre-Katrina levels, and restore the number of destinations to about 90 percent of pre-Katrina levels, Hunter said.

Adam Smith, Call Your Editor

It's said that people in Louisiana do things a little different. Why even the laws of supply and demand don't always apply.

NEW ORLEANS - John Schaff, a New Orleans real estate agent, recently advised a property owner to lower the asking price of a condominium at 3915 St. Charles Ave. by $20,000.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the 1,000-square-foot condo would have sold for the original asking price of $329,000 — but not these days, Schaff said.

The growing condo glut in New Orleans has experts predicting prices will fall and developers will have to target a less-affluent market.

In Uptown and the Warehouse District, 349 condos were for sale from October through Tuesday, Schaff said. That’s a 112 percent increase over the 165 condos for sale during the same period in 2005 and 2006, and a 92 percent increase over the 181 for sale during the same period in 2004 and 2005.

“There are a lot of units on the market. You’re going to see asking prices start to come down more,” said Shaun Talbot, vice president of Talbot Realty Group.

Talbot described the downtown condo market as soft.

Fewer units are selling.

Condo sales are down from pre-Katrina levels, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors.

In January, 50 condos sold in all of Orleans Parish, down from 88 last January and 81 in January 2005. Only January 2004 had fewer sales with 30.

“We’ve have a lot of people looking and not really acting,” Talbot said. “They know there are a lot of units on the market. But there doesn’t seem to be that same sense of urgency (as immediately after Katrina).”

Average selling prices are rising, according to NOMAR.

In January, the average price of a condo sold in Orleans Parish was $268,216, up 5 percent from $254,954 in January 2006, up 30 percent from $206,534 in January 2005 and up 12 percent from $239,310 in January 2004.

“It’s by no means a depressed market in terms of price. But you’re not going to see the incredible double-digit increases on a year-to-year basis that we’ve seen in the past.” Talbot said.

Six months from now, condos might command higher prices, Schaff said. But not now.

So, some developers are turning their attention to a lower price range in hopes of attracting buyers. New Orleans native James Huger is one.

Construction is wrapping up Huger’s $4-million Charlotte Commons, a three-story, 24-unit project on Carondelet Street one block off St. Charles Avenue near Louisiana Avenue.

Huger is selling condos for $197,000 to $325,000. They consist of a dozen 1,250-square-foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom units and a dozen, 875-square-foot two-bedroom, one-bathroom units. They all have wood floors and granite countertops. Some have views of downtown.

“We’re after the people who can’t afford the traditional Warehouse (District) stuff, who want something new, good location and secure parking. We try to price things a little bit under the market,” he said.

Huger calls his project the “canary in the cave” because the market’s absorption of the condos will show how much demand there really is for housing, he said.

“We’re just rolling the dice that we can sell them,” he said.

It’s too soon to tell how much demand there will be for Huger’s condos, which he plans to finish this month. Huger held his first open house Jan. 20.

“In a way he’s right. If there is that much demand for housing and he’s got a product that’s reasonably priced in an area that’s OK, not fantastic ... then that tells us that the market is not that strong,” Talbot said.

One thing going against Huger’s project, Talbot and others say, is that it’s on the “wrong side” of St. Charles Avenue because it is not on the river side.

But if Huger prices the condos right, they “should sell,” Talbot said.

“I think we’ve brought a product to the market at a price point that no one else is bringing to the market, certainly not for new construction,” said Larry Patterson of G&H Construction & Restoration, which is building Huger’s condos.

John Rareshide, a New Orleans developer, said the New Orleans condo market is healthy for units priced around $200,000.

“It’s a price point. That’s what’s selling right now,” he said.

Rareshide recently sold five, 425-square-foot, one-bedroom condos for $135,000 each at 1200-1210 Austerlitz St. The units were renovated, he said.

He also developed 12 condos at 3308 Prytania St. Those units hit the market roughly two weeks ago. Rareshide is selling the 531-square-foot, one-bedroom, one-bathroom condos for $179,000.

My own analysis of this is that those who could afford the pricy condos in the Warehouse District have already bought into the market. Those with a smaller budget, till now, have been left out. Whether or not they will buy into that market remains to be seen.

In the meantime, people are still waiting for their LRA money to rebuild the own homes.

D'day Mate

Australia wants more trade with the U.S. and has plans for New Orleans to be one of its hubs.

NEW ORLEANS — The Australian Trade Commission, the Australian Government’s export facilitation agency, is opening a trade center in New Orleans.

The center will help Australian exporters enter foreign markets, including the United States.

The center is looking for a district manager to run the office in the World Trade Center. The manager would report to the Australian consul-general and trade commissioner based in Atlanta. The district manager would work the region of Louisiana and Mississippi with emphasis on the Gulf Coast.

Marketing expertise, contacts and trade information is required along with a working knowledge of market conditions, customer relationships and import and distributor contacts with emphasis on projects related to the reconstruction and revitalization in the areas of modular housing, infrastructure and industrial products.

Thats Beaut! I'd like to start with some dinki di amber fluid.

River Of Dreams

An earlier post related the agreement between the city and the Port of New Orleans to return part of the riverfront back to the citizens. Now five teams of designers have been chosen to plan the redevelopment.

Nine teams of architects and planners from New Orleans and cities around the world responded to a recent invitation to help plan the redevelopment of a 4.1-mile stretch of publicly owned land along the east bank riverfront.

Among them were at least two winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the highest international honor in the field, and architects from London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Mexico City, Edinburgh and other cities.

Famous names such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Reiser + Umemoto, TEN Arquitectos and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz adorn the list of applicants to lead what Sean Cummings calls "reinventing the crescent" that gave the Crescent City its nickname.

(snip)

The foundation of the planning effort is a cooperative endeavor agreement recently agreed to by the city and the Port of New Orleans that spells out what east bank wharves the port will continue to need for maritime activities and what areas will be available for public, nonmaritime redevelopment.

Among other things, the agreement envisions "an uninterrupted and continuous linear green space or riverfront park" along the entire stretch between Jackson and Poland avenues, a "world-class performance venue" at the Louisa Street Wharf or another site, and a hotel and expanded cruise ship terminal at the Julia Street Wharf.

Other possibilities include more cruise ship terminals, hotels, parking garages, museums, an amphitheater, an opera house or a planetarium, according to the city-port document.

Rebirth on the batture

A major goal of the agreement is to expand the area of the riverfront, once devoted entirely to maritime uses, that is available for public use. City leaders have talked about "reclaiming the riverfront" since at least the 1970s, and the process already has resulted in French Quarter and Central Business District attractions such as the Moonwalk, Woldenberg Riverfront Park, the Aquarium of the Americas and the Riverwalk shopping mall.

And the finalists are:

• Chan Krieger Sieniewicz (planning and urban design), Cambridge, Mass.; Hargreaves Associates (landscape architecture), Cambridge; TEN Arquitectos (architecture), New York; and Eskew + Dumez + Ripple (executive management and urban design), New Orleans.
• EDAW (planning and landscape architecture), Alexandria, Va.; Frank Gehry (architecture and urban design), Los Angeles; and Marks Associates (landscape consultant), New Orleans.
• Mathes Brierre Architects, New Orleans; HOK (planning), 23 offices worldwide; and Studio Daniel Libeskind (architecture), New York.
• Reiser + Umemoto (architecture), New York; Olin Partnership (landscape architecture), Philadelphia; Studio Matrixx (architecture), New Orleans; and Alan Gordon (design consultant).
• Zaha Hadid Architects, London; Trahan Architects, Baton Rouge; Billes Architecture, New Orleans; Bruce Mau Design, Toronto; and Gross Max Landscape Architects, Edinburgh.

This is a pretty heady group. What is more encouraging is the inclusion of local firms the all the design teams.

After reviewing the location map of the proposed revitalization, I have to ask the question, what will become of the existing wharves in the proposed development area? Don't get me wrong, the wharves are an eyesore and I will be glad to see them go but we cannot ignore economic contribution that the port provides for New Orleans. My guess is they will move either upstream of downstream of downtown New Orleans in either St. Bernard, Jefferson or maybe St. Charles Parish. Or will the Port simply reduce the number of wharves in the city.

The latter seems likely as the port now has more capacity than it needs. However lately, state and local officials have been making trips to Asia and the Persian Gulf to encourage more trade with Louisiana. In addition, Panamanian officials have been visiting Louisiana. This is possibly in conjunction with that country beginning to look at widening the Panama Canal to accommodate larger cargo ships traveling to and from the East/Gulf Coast and Asia. With New Orleans being the largest port in the region and the west coast ports at or near capacity, we are looking at the possibility that New Orleans will see a great up tick in shipping. I wonder if this is being taken into account when redeveloping the riverfront.

I'm not favoring more wharves versus less public access to the river but rather that future needs have to be taken into consideration during the design process.

So to quote Billy Joel:

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night

BOO!

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina doesn't appear to have frightened off many of this Halloween's partiers by judging the brisk sales of costumes shops.

In the days leading up to Halloween before Hurricane Katrina, a security guard stood outside the door of Uptown Costume and Dancewear while lines of anxious customers stretched two blocks down Magazine Street waiting to be ushered inside.

“But rules are rules,” the guard would say. “Only 20 in at a time.”

Inside, the lucky few clutch bat wings and corsets and mini-dress nurse uniforms while waiting in an hour-long line to reach the register.

Employee Webbie Rhodes said when Halloween is over, Uptown Costume and Dancewear usually looks like most stores did following the storm — looted. This year is no different.

“People are just buying, buying, buying everything,” Rhodes said. “Pirates and wood fairies are big this year. And they’re buying corsets and can-can skirts up a storm. We do a lot of sexy versions of everything, from Snow White to Alice in Wonderland. Those are really big.”

Uptown Costume opened shortly before Halloween last year and the lines were out the door. This year’s pre-Halloween rush started three weeks ago and has been steady ever since.

“People wonder why the hell we do this in New Orleans and it amuses me,” Rhodes said. “Some people think we’d be hesitant to celebrate anything, but this is our industry, tourism, and if we didn’t do it they would say we were done down here. Yes, it is a party town and it keeps the bars open and the hotels going.”

As Halloween weekend nears, Rhodes expects the crowds to be the same size as they have for the past decade.

We may not have been prepared for this hurricane season. But I've got my costume already. Never let it be said that New Orleaneans will pass up an opportunity to have a good time.

Risky Business

Investors and potential buyers are understandably skittish about getting into the condo business in New Orleans. But enough of them are jumping in to keep several condominium projects in the area on track.

Hurricane Katrina sped along plans for a spate of new high-rise residential towers, but more than a quarter of the proposed housing units have already been killed or put on hold.

Out-of-town investors "are circling like eagles" with capital ready to invest in downtown projects, said Kurt Weigle, executive director of the Downtown Development District. And inquiries from outside developers have increased five-fold, possibly because of special tax incentives being made available to building projects in hurricane-impacted areas.

But not all of the residential projects will be built, experts say. The pricetags on most of the announced projects have risen 30 percent due to escalating prices on labor and building materials, developers say. That big of an increase is giving pause to both the developers behind the condo towers and the potential condo buyers who, in some cases, are backing out of sales contracts when presented with the higher prices.

Furthermore, the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act, which created billions in subsidy programs to assist in the rebuilding of New Orleans, has been less encouraging of condominium projects, which enjoy no tax benefits under the program, said Gary Elkins, a local attorney specializing in tax credits.

On the surface this is good news for the economy in the short term. In the long term, the jury is still out. If these projects do get built but without sufficient clients to fill the units, the result will be an overbuilt market with undervalued properties and depressed revenue.

Partially completed and and vacant condominiums are not the kind of development we are looking for.

Bon Voyage

For the first time in fourteen months, a cruise ship has shoved off from a New Orleans pier.

The Norwegian Sun, which will sail every Sunday through April 8, 2007, will be followed by the Carnival Fantasy, which on Oct. 26 begins five- and four-night cruises to Mexico year-round; and Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas, which resumes its week-long cruises to the Western Caribbean Dec. 2, continuing through early April. Royal Caribbean has no plans to return to New Orleans after the spring.

Princess' Golden Princess will sail three cruises in December, testing the market for possible future sailings, said Robert Jumonville, who oversees the cruise industry for the Port of New Orleans.

It was obvious Sunday that the worry isn't so much about drawing passengers from the New Orleans area. The ship was packed with people wearing Saints jerseys. Questions about the score were the buzz, even during the fire/safety drill. TVs in the bars were broadcasting another game, so shouts erupted when the crawl gave the final score.

But the reason for optimism is not because of the locals going on cruises. Rather, it is the expecation of out-of-towners staying in-town just prior to their cruise.

It was obvious Sunday that the worry isn't so much about drawing passengers from the New Orleans area. The ship was packed with people wearing Saints jerseys. Questions about the score were the buzz, even during the fire/safety drill. TVs in the bars were broadcasting another game, so shouts erupted when the crawl gave the final score.

"Everywhere I go, people think we're underwater," said LaGrange, who added that confronting this misconception is one reason he's traveling so much. "The major point is to tell them the sliver on the river, the French Quarter, the Garden District, Uptown are open for business."

LaGrange said the cruise industry here is an economic engine that has filled almost 20,000 hotel room nights a year.

Officials of the International Council of Cruise Lines report that cruise passengers in New Orleans leave an average of $330 a night in direct spending, he said. That compares with about $92 a night spent by cruise passengers in other cities. The reason is so many passengers spend a couple of days in New Orleans when they cruise from here.

The irony here is that the ocean almost destroyed the city. Now we are looking to the sea as a way to rebuild.

Yossarian Lives!

Conventioneers are not coming to New Orleans because of a lack of flights. Airlines aren't scheduling more flights to New Orleans because of a lack of conventioneers.

Last week, Microsoft canceled three meetings in New Orleans that would have brought a combined 30,000 people to the city next year because the company felt there weren't enough flights for attendees to travel to New Orleans in a reasonable amount of time. The group was particularly concerned about international attendees.

Though Microsoft is the only group known to have canceled a post-Katrina convention because of limited air service, the move was still a blow to the New Orleans tourism industry, which says that such corporate meetings are critical as the city struggles to hang on to conventions and lure new ones. Contrary to initial reports, airport and convention officials had worked closely with the company, but they said little could be done about Microsoft's need for stronger international service. Meanwhile, some conventions with dates in New Orleans are urging their attendees to book flights early to avoid problems.

Although the airport made great strides in restoring flight service in the first months after the storm, the gains have come more slowly in the past six months. New Orleans now has about 61 percent of the seats and 65 percent of the flights it had operating before Hurricane Katrina. The airport serves about 25 percent fewer destinations than it did before the storm, increasing the chances that passengers will have to fly to a hub city such as Dallas, Houston, Memphis or Atlanta to catch a connecting flight. And planes are going out fuller than they were before the storm, making it harder -- and often more expensive -- to book a flight.

"There's just no flights," said Al Latham, a Denver real estate agent with a home in the French Quarter. Latham has traveled to New Orleans five times since Hurricane Katrina, and next month he's bringing 25 people from his office to the National Association of Realtors convention, the largest show to convene in New Orleans since the storm.

Stephen Perry, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the bureau has been able to work with convention groups and airlines to make sure there's adequate air service for meetings.

"We're doing literally everything humanly possible," Perry said. "We're being more aggressive than ever."

But others say New Orleans is losing business because of its air-service challenges.

"Unfortunately, the answer to that is yes. I've talked with a number of groups that were booked or were interested in holding a meeting in New Orleans, but after checking into the (air)lift, they decided against booking into New Orleans," said Phillip Jones, president and chief executive of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau and former secretary of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism for Louisiana. "It's a real challenge for New Orleans.

But the airlines say it's not their fault.

With a lower population and reduced tourism to the city, showing sustained demand is a challenge. Airlines want to see at least 90 days of sustained demand for more service before they'll consider additional flights or larger planes, Hunter said, and there's a six-month time lag before the official enplanement statistics are released through the Department of Transportation.

Fortunaely there may be a solution:

Your probably thinking that the last thing we need is another airline that's more than glad to suck us dry by charging outrageous prices, but not this time (miracle). One Louisiana native is trying to put together a New Orleans airline called DirectAir that would offer cut-rate fares to last-minute travelers. Though the idea seems unrealistic, it has stirred some interest among legislators which in return is prompting the state's 7-commercial airports to condider spending money to study the concept.

The airline would offer low fares (I've heard that before), and would funnel travelers from Louisiana's 6-regional airports to New Orleans, there they could connect flights serving 57 other cities in the U.S. and Latin America. DirectAir plans on using Boeing 737-300 or McDonnell MD-80 aircraft for the trips.

Now get this, DirectAir plans on offering $50 flights to Atlanta, $78 flights to Cancun, and $55 flights to Houston (again I'll believe it, when I see it). Passengers would not be charged extra for switching flights and would not pay extra for making last-minute reservations.

So catch as Catch-22 can.

Locked Up

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon has ordered that the Industrial Canal Lock Replacement Project be put on hold in order to further evaluate the enviromental impact of the project.

"The court finds that the corps failed to take a 'hard look' at the environmental impacts and consequences of dredging and disposing of the canal's contaminated sediment and should revisit the project in light of recent catastrophic events," U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon wrote in his opinion, referring to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

The ruling was hailed as a victory by Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, which filed the lawsuit asking that the project be reviewed. The neighborhood group, concerned about disruptions from the $764 million construction project, had worked against it in tandem with environmental groups concerned about contamination of the waterway.

I am neither a lawyer (thank God) nor an enviromental expert so I don't want to get into the complexities and impact of this decision. I'll let you educate yourself and come to your own conclusion.

I do know that shipping is an integral portion of the New Orleans area economy.

"The Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association estimates that for every 24 hours that the lock is closed, the nation's transportation industry loses $500,000," the statement said. "Before Katrina, about 9,000 direct and indirect jobs relied on deepwater shipping to the port's Inner Harbor, and the lock replacement project is essential to retaining those jobs in the long term."

Whatever the outcome it should come soon. The rebuilding of New Orleans should not be held up while lawyers lock horns.

The Beef People

New Orleans, Winn-Dixie should be commended for helping rebuild our broken city. The company plans to spend $25 million to reopen its storm-damaged stores. The company reopened its Gentilly store at 4600 Chef Menteur Highway last Friday and will reopen its Chalmette store on Paris Road Oct. 12 — the same day Winn-Dixie is scheduled to emerge from bankruptcy.

New Orleans CityBusiness has more.

The Good, The Bad, The Indifferent

The good news: Phase I of the New Orleans Heart and Surgery Institute reopening is up and running.

The bad news: Phase IV of the Morial Convention Center has been put on-hold.

And the indifferent: Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator pens his opinion of the Saints victory over the Falcons and its meaning for the city at large.

Have It Your Way

Burger King will be the first fast-food franchise to reopen in Gentilly.

Nearly 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, Burger King franchisee Eugene Brooks will open the first fast food restaurant at 8 a.m. Thursday in the Gentilly section of New Orleans.

Renovations cost more than $700,000, which includes certified mold remediation and all new dining room and kitchen equipment at 6332 Elysian Fields Ave near the UNO Lakefront Campus.

“I am looking forward to opening our doors and serving our customers once again," Brooks said. "We are committed to the New Orleans community and we hope to also have our other Elysian Fields Avenue location reopen soon. We will continue to support New Orleans by being a good corporate citizen and providing employment opportunities in the community.�

Burger King is accepting applications and offering up to $10 per hour based on experience. Apply in person.

Burger King operates more than 11,100 restaurants in all 50 states and in more than 65 countries and U.S. territories worldwide. Approximately 90 percent of the restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees.

Blast Off

The NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East will continue to operate.

The external fuel tanks for the shuttle, and previous generations of NASA space travel, were built at Michoud. The tanks will continue to be built at Michoud until 2008.

The next Michoud project will involve construction of NASA’s crew launch and cargo launch vehicles, with the possibility of manufacturing the crew exploration vehicle if Lockheed Martin receives the contract. The new vehicles theoretically combine Apollo and space shuttle technology.

New Orleans CityBusiness has more.

Finding Nemo

The Aquarium of the Americas is set to reopen on May 26. The Times-Picayune has more.

Puttin' On The Ritz

In December, the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton will reopen its doors to the public.

NEW ORLEANS The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans will reopen in December as a premier luxury hotel.

We are very pleased The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans will be ready to welcome guests once again by year's end," said Simon Cooper, president and CEO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. LLC. "The road back from Hurricane Katrina has been challenging but the hotel will return better than ever to reclaim its reputation as the finest in the city.

The the hotel, in a national historic landmark building more than 100 years old, will be fully restored with enhancements. Since opening Oct. 6, 2000, The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans has ranked annually as one of the 500 Best Hotels in the World by Travel + Leisure and remained on Conde Nast Traveler Hot List, Gold List and Top North American Hotels lists.

This hotel, situated on the edge of the French Quarter, will have more than 8,000 square feet of meeting space on the first floor in what had been the Gallery of Shops. The hotel has more than 34,000 square feet of meeting space for everything from intimate gatherings to plated dinners for 500.

The hotel sustained extensive basement flooding post-Katrina but new custom-built machinery including air conditioning, laundry and cafeteria equipment will be installed.

Throughout 452 rooms at The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans and its hotel-within-a-hotel, The 75-room Maison Orleans, each room will feature in-room gourmet coffee and tea, wireless internet access, 400-thread count linens made of 100 percent Egyptian cotton, enhanced showerheads by Kohler, flat-panel high definition television and luxurious branded amenities from Bulgaria's White Tea line.

The Iberville Suites are expected to reopen in February 2007.

Now if only I had any FEMA money left I'd try to make a reservation.