land use & development

Group working to add B.W. Cooper buildings to Broad Street Cultural District

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Broad Community Connections is proposing to include the B.W. Cooper public housing site in the South Broad Street Cultural District. 

Three original buildings are left of the original Calliope Projects, renamed for B.W. Cooper in 1981. After Hurricane Katrina, the development was shuttered. Most of it was demolished and replaced with Marrero Commons, a mixed-income townhouse-style development. Broad Community Connections, a nonprofit that works with small businesses to redevelop the Broad Street corridor, said about two-thirds of the Marrero Commons complex sits within the proposed expansion area. The proposal would expand the South Broad Street Cultural District to include the land bordered by Earhart Boulevard, South Dorgenois Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Galvez Street. 

The Cultural Districts Program was created by the Louisiana legislature in 2007 to revitalize and preserve cultural hubs within the state.

land use & development

City plans to turn McDonogh 7 site into affordable housing

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By Sharon Lurye, Uptown Messenger

A proposal from the Housing Authority of New Orleans to turn the former McDonogh 7 school building into affordable housing drew intense interest from neighbors as more than 50 people attended an online community meeting on Friday (June 18). Representatives from HANO and the architecture firm VergesRome laid out plans for the Uptown site, which currently houses the upper grades of Audubon Charter School. The three-story school building would be turned into 27 affordable housing units for seniors, while the rest of the site would house 12 more units in the form of family duplexes. There would be 41 parking spaces in total, and 20% of the site would be green space. If all goes according to plan, the Housing Authority aims for City Council approval in December or January and would start construction in the fall of 2022 or spring of 2023.

land use & development

Proposed subdivision of historic property causes controversy in Carrollton

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It’s rare that something as mundane as the subdivision of a residential lot gets much attention, but a proposal to sell and divide a historic property in the Carrollton area has led to protests from neighbors who want the land to be saved. The controversy concerns a lot on 914 Dante Street that holds a six-unit apartment building, plus a side yard with several mature, leafy trees. According to Susan Johnson of  the watchdog organization Town of Carrollton Watch, who has been researching the property, the lot was the site of a Union Army hospital during the Civil War. That hospital was later destroyed, possibly in a fire. The current structure was once home to F.C. Zeller, the mayor of the town of Carrollton before it became part of New Orleans. 

Riverlake Properties, the property owner, plans to request permission from the city to divide the lot into two.

Students revitalize community gardens around Broadmoor

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Broadmoor is coming into full bloom this spring as the Broadmoor Improvement Association and Tulane students lead efforts to revitalize three local community gardens. Two of the gardens – the Food Forest on Toledano Street near Dorgenois Street and another produce patch at the Broadmoor Community Church – will produce fresh herbs and vegetables for the Broadmoor Food Pantry. A rain garden at South Miro and Gen. Taylor streets will help mitigate flooding and beautify the area with native plants like cattails, cypress trees and irises. 

The goal of the gardens is simple: “We grow food and we nurture plants to bring people together,” said Dorothy Jelagat Cheruiyot, a professor of ecology and biology at Tulane University. Cheruiyot’s students are working as busily as bees in the Broadmoor gardens each week as part of internships and classes related to urban agroecology, as well as an additional garden at the New Zion Baptist Church in Central City. But the ultimate goal is to recruit neighborhood volunteers so that the lots will truly be sustainable community gardens, with an emphasis on the community.

land use & development

Apartment and retail complex planned for St. Charles and Louisiana

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The old Rite Aid property at 3401 St. Charles Ave., vacant since 2018, may gain new life. Developers plan to build a 115-unit apartment complex with 19,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. 

Neighborhood residents are abuzz about the planned development at St. Charles and Louisiana avenues, and reactions are split between excitement over the new development and concerns over its size. The development will have a five-story building facing Louisiana and a three-story townhouse behind it, facing Delachaise Street.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: University area gives its regards to Broadway

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The pandemic may have upended the city’s traditional Mardi Gras plans, but the show must go on. Residents of the University Uptown neighborhood have raised the curtain on a fleet of Broadway-inspired house floats, following the theme of “2020: The Musical!” This Krewe of House Floats has stepped in during a Carnival season of no parades, no bars and no partying in the French Quarter after curfew. 

“Krewe of House Floats has really been building the plane while flying it. The humor and the whimsy of our neighborhood really shows through with our theme,” said Jenna Rockett, captain of the University Uptown subkrewe. “It’s that ability to look around and laugh and make it work.”

Yardi Gras Stories: The Lower Garden District turns the music up and gets down

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“Here’s your Elvis outfit,” said the wife, tossing a Vegas-era Elvis Presley jumpsuit and a pompadour black wig with sideburns at her husband.  

“But … uh … I don’t even like Elvis,” piped the husband from his armchair. “Put it on,” came the wife’s command. “We’re going to a parade!” 

That scene took place seven years ago, shortly after Illinois native and raconteur Terri Bird and her husband, Kassinger Valente, relocated to New Orleans.

Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras Stories: Carrollton-Hollygrove homes are as proud, and as colorful, as peacocks

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Creativity isn’t canceled. 

In the Carrollton-Hollygrove neighborhood, the houses are especially colorful. The Carrollton-Hollygrove subkrewe’s theme is “Nesting in Place” — a nod to the neighborhood bird sanctuary that resident peacocks call home. 

Courtney Bullock, one of the subkrewe’s co-captains explains how the Krewe of House Floats idea came together. “It all blew up in a week,” Bullock said. “There was a division of neighborhoods, and I knew that people would want to decorate their houses — we just had to do something.” 

Bullock’s house, adorned with musical instruments and a piano banner, has a musical theme. “The title of my house float is ‘Lay That Funky Music,’” she said.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: Freret is off to great places. Will it succeed? Yes, it will, indeed!

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Parades are canceled this year, but have you no fear. Freret held a vote on a theme for house floats. They picked a theme based on Seuss, let creativity loose, and let everyone know: The theme’s “Oh, the Places You Can’t Go!” 

The Freret neighborhood has become a colorful storybook as it takes on a Seussian theme for Yardi Gras, a safe alternative to Mardi Gras parades where residents decorate their own houses as floats. Imagination abounds in houses decorated in the spirit of beloved children’s books. 

When given lemons, “leave it to this city to make some lemonade and put vodka in it,” said Liz Cooke, a resident of the Freret neighborhood and the owner of Lionheart Prints on Magazine Street. Cooke came up with the idea for the theme because, simply, “I can’t wait to go places.”

“I’m used to traveling every month for business or just life, and I’ve just staying put like I’m supposed to,” she said.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: The Garden District throws a house float party

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The Garden District, bordered by the Uptown parade route on St. Charles Avenue, is a neighborhood that parties during Carnival time. The neighborhood’s Krewe of House Floats theme, “Garden Party,” reflects their spirit. 

“One of the best parts of living in our amazing neighborhood is the access to so many magical Mardi Gras parades and the spirit of the season,” Garden District subkrewe Captain Meghan Caye Turner said. “When I heard the concept of Krewe of House Floats, I knew it was important to keep the spirit alive in our neighborhood, while supporting local artists and shops.”

The subkrewe of the Garden District has fewer than 20 houses registered on the map that rolled out on the KoHF website on Monday (Feb. 1), but there are more that didn’t make it to the official map. 

One striking creation is in the 1200 block of Harmony Street, where neon artist Nate Sheaffer has created a magical “Krewe of Garden Party” covered with his custom designed neon lights. 

Sheaffer moved to New Orleans right after Mardi Gras 2020.