blight and demolition

Request for demolition of O.C. Haley shotgun home withdrawn

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The owners of a historic shotgun home on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard have withdrawn their controversial request to tear down the structure, the New Orleans City Council said on Thursday. The city’s Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee had already recommended against allowing the demolition of 2112 O.C. Haley Boulevard last month, after neighbors and preservationists argued that the house is part of a pattern of four remaining identical, circa-1880s shotguns that form a crucial part of the corridor’s streetscape. The opponents of the demolition said the house could be restored, and criticized owners Gary and Mabel Smith of Atlanta for its current state of neglect and disrepair. At Thursday’s meeting of the New Orleans City Council, the clerk announced that the demolition proposal had been withdrawn at the request of the owners, and no further action was taken on it.

blight and demolition

Former clinic on Louisiana Avenue to be demolished and rebuilt; VFW to replace meeting hall on Lyons

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A large former medical center at 2500 Louisiana Avenue is slated to be torn down and rebuilt with a new clinic, city officials said, and, in a separate request, the Veterans of Foreign Wars are planning to tear down and rebuild their meeting hall on Lyons Street. The blighted, graffiti covered building at the corner of Louisiana Avenue and Freret Street is owned by New Orleans developer Peter Gardner, and the demolition applicant is Charles Watkins of OGA Acquisitions in Nashville, Tenn. Neither was present when the Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee considered the demolition request on Monday, but NCDAC chair Ed Horan described the building as “sort of a 1960s slab-on-grade building on the corner.” Plans submitted with the demolition request say that the 8,500-square-foot building will be replaced with a new dialysis clinic, and that the developers have already begun the conditional-use process for the site. The lot is expected to sit vacant for about six months, but the fence around the property will remain during that time, the documents say.

blight and demolition

Fire-damaged Magazine Street building approved for demolition as neighbors eye redevelopment

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A large Magazine Street building heavily damaged in a fire earlier this year has been approved for demolition, but neighbors and City Council members say they intend to remain involved in the rebuilding plans against any large, “big box” style developments in its place. Meanwhile, a separate request to tear down part of a historic home just off the Freret corridor for a driveway split the City Council and failed amid concerns that the character of the streetscape might be altered for the purposes of an investment property. ‘Suited to the mom and pops’

The building at 4712 Magazine Street caught fire in January after a kitchen fire in an upstairs apartment spread into the attic, damaging the other apartment and the three businesses below. On Thursday, City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell said that the owners want to rebuild a similar configuration, with several residential units upstairs and commercial on the ground floor. That plan drew a praise from Councilwoman Stacy Head in theory, but concern about how it will develop in practice.

blight and demolition

Demolition request rejected for historic shotgun home on O.C. Haley

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A city panel rejected a request Monday to demolish a historic shotgun home on Oretha Castle Boulevard hailed as a crucial element of the streetscape of the rapidly redeveloping corridor. The house at 2112 Oretha Castle Haley sits at the beginning of four identical shotgun homes in the block (originally six) that date to the 1880s, preservationists said, and their repeating row of columns were described in Samuel Wilson’s book on New Orleans architecture as a key part of the classic vista on the street. Neighbor Jonathan Courtney of the Redmellon firm next door said the house should be saved, rather than demolished, like their own offices. “Our building where our office is now was in worse shape three years ago,” Courtney said at Monday’s meeting of the Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee. “We redeveloped it, and it looks great now.”

blight and demolition

Owner of collapsed apartments on Amelia plans affordable housing there, councilwoman says

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The church pastor who owned an apartment building that dramatically collapsed on Amelia Street is seeking federal money to rebuild more affordable housing on the site, City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell told neighbors on Tuesday evening. After years of complaints from neighbors about its blighted condition and allegations of illegal activity by squatters in the former apartments at 1900 Amelia, the building suddenly collapsed in April 2015. The fate of the site remained uncertain, but the Rev. Charles Southall III of the First Emanuel Baptist Church in Central City has filed an application with the Louisiana Housing Corp. for money to rebuild affordable housing on the site, Cantrell said at a joint meeting Tuesday night of the Delachaise Neighborhood Association and Milan Focus Group at their new location, Martin Wine Cellar. Technically, the long period of disuse has cost the site its multi-family zoning, Cantrell said, and it has reverted to the same two-family residential classification of the surrounding neighborhood.

blight and demolition

Mortgage company’s plan to tear down Carrollton home paused by city demolition committee

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The committee overseeing demolition requests across most of Uptown New Orleans balked at a mortgage company’s recent request to tear down a single-story Carrollton home amid protests from the Preservation Resource Center and confusion over what the bank intends to do with the property. CitiMortgage repossessed the home at 8405 Jeanette Street, and has determined that it cannot be renovated before it is sold, April Marrone, a CitiMortgage demolition representative, told the Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee on Feb. 15. The house suffers from extensive termite damage to the structure and the roof, and engineers have told them that the foundation can’t be repaired without risking collapse of the rest of the structure, Marrone said. The building has a lean that they worry could lead to it falling on the neighbors’ home, and the interior is worse, Marrone said.

blight and demolition

Mayor’s committee recommends historic-district control over demolitions across Uptown, Carrollton

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Most of Uptown New Orleans between South Claiborne Avenue or Earhart Boulevard and the river should receive historic-district protection against demolitions — with much stricter standards on St. Charles and Carrollton avenues, according to a unanimous recommendation Wednesday night by a committee of residents appointed by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The vote by the members of the “Uptown/Carrollton Study Committee” is only the first step in a process that will play out in the months to come before the City Planning Commission and the City Council, officials explained at Wednesday night’s meeting. But the recommendation also gives a concrete starting point to the coming debate about which areas of Uptown need historic protection, and how much. “This is not the last step in the process,” said Eleanor Burke, deputy director of the HDLC.

blight and demolition

Ideas abound for old Carrollton Courthouse, but time is running out

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Possible futures for the vacant Carrollton Courthouse include a school for building trades, a community gathering place or an event venue, according to a series of visions presented by Tulane architecture students on Thursday evening, but time is running short before the Orleans Parish School Board decides to sell the historic building. The courthouse was built in 1855 by prolific New Orleans architect Henry Howard in the Greek Revival style, drawing its inspiration directly from the ancient temple of Erechtheion in Athens, built circa 400 B.C., according to research compiled by students in the Tulane School of Architecture building preservation studio. It served as a courthouse for 20 years — with a jail building behind it — then spent more than a century as the home for various schools, McDonogh No. 23, Ben Franklin High School, Lusher Middle School and most recently Audubon Charter. Audubon Charter left the building in 2013 as the aging structure and decrepit portable outbuildings deteriorated, leaving the Orleans Parish School Board with the difficult decision of what to do with it and annual bills of around $100,000 to keep it insured and minimally maintained.

blight and demolition

Apartment buildings on State Street cleared for demolition

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The cluster of brick apartment buildings at State and Tchoupitoulas got initial approval for demolition this week to make way for a new condo building, while city officials also considered requests to tear down homes on Jena, Laurel and Coliseum streets. The request to tear down the old apartments at State and Tchoupitoulas was largely a formality — the City Council has already approved developer Jim MacPhaille’s plan to build a new condo building there. On Monday, the city Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee, which oversees demolitions in a number of historic neighborhoods, received the individual requests for each of a dozen addresses for the buildings on State, Tchoupitoulas and Front streets. “The new redevelopment plan has already been approved by City Council,” said NCDAC chairman Ed Horan. “Now they just need us to clear the way for the demolition.”

blight and demolition

Partial demolition rejected on Laurel Street, two demolitions on Toledano Street and Ameila Street approved

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A request to demolish part of a Laurel Street home to prepare for an addition was rejected by city officials on Monday afternoon, but requests regarding two homes on Toledano and Amelia streets were approved. At 4018 Laurel Street, architect Rush Carlton told the Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee on Monday that he and developers want to demolish 50 percent of the existing single-family residence and add a second story as well. “The intention is to rebuild the rear portion of the house a two-story addition while maintaining the front two rooms, the classical shotgun rooms, in their existing configuration,” Carlton said. Committee member Eleanor Burke, deputy director of the Historic District Landmarks Commission, said that she opposed the request because the plans removed too much of the structure’s side gallery. “I am going to be voting against this proposal because I feel as though what’s being proposed, they’re asking to demolish too much of the historic structure.