Hey! Café got its start as a tiny coffee shop on Magazine Street before moving to the Lafitte Greenway. Now it is adding a second location in the Broadmoor neighborhood.
Co-owner Tommy LeBlanc, who has a cartoon and animation background, transitioned into the coffee business after he was laid off in 2009, when the company he worked for changed hands.
He and co-owner Greg Rodrigue opened the Hey! Café in the Magazine Street spot that was once home to Magazine Perks. “We loved being there,” LeBlanc said.
In a divided vote held after two months of hearings, the Historic District Landmarks Commission gave the green light to a new mixed-use building on Magazine Street in the Irish Channel. Their April 6 ruling will now go before the City Council, which could overturn the vote. The Garden District Association has filed an appeal, GDA Executive Director Shelley Landrieu told Uptown Messenger. Garden District, Irish Channel and Lower Garden District residents came out in force to oppose the plans for the three-story 15,000-square-foot building planned for an empty lot at 2230 Magazine St. The HDLC received 29 letters of opposition to the plans and one letter of support, according to city records.
A new neighborhood is planned for the a whopping 27 acres of vacant land in the Lower Garden District. The developers’ plans include 1,100 new apartments, a boutique hotel, an “apartment hotel,” a grocery store, bars, restaurants, fitness center, offices, green space, a museum and an entertainment venue. The developers say they could break ground as soon as next year.
“This development is an opportunity for a one-of-a-kind mixed-use site that will bring everything you want to see in a neighborhood and more,” land-use consultant Nicole Webre announced to the audience of a public meeting via Zoom last month. Webre is part of River District Neighborhood Investor LLC, the team selected in 2021 by the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center board to develop the site.
According to the plans that the investors submitted when securing their bid for the development, roughly 40% of the new housing units will be affordable or “workforce” housing, priced below market rate. The River District would completely remake what is currently a zone of empty lots just upriver from the Crescent City Connection — a rare undeveloped patch of land on even rarer high ground within the city.
Audubon Charter School’s Uptown Upper Campus serving grades four through eight will move into the Live Oak facility for the 2022-23 school year, Audubon Schools CEO Steve Corbett announced. The recently renovated facility at 3128 Constance St. offers more than 84,000 square feet, a theater and auditorium for Audubon’s flourishing arts curriculum, as well as colorful murals along the hallway. Audubon plans to make it the Upper Campus’ permanent home. The Irish Channel campus now houses FirstLine Live Oak Charter School, which announced in January that it is closing at the end of the school year because of declining enrollment.
The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority is taking steps to renovate the dilapidated firehouse at 2314 Louisiana Ave. The agency is seeking community input on how to redevelop the 7,000-square-foot city-owned building. On Wednesday evening (March 10), NORA hosted a community meeting via Zoom. The historic firehouse is blighted, and NORA’s goal put it back into commerce. Seth Knudsen, NORA’s real estate development director, said the vacant firehouse is zoned as a historic urban mixed-use district, or HU-MU, which permits residential use as well as a variety of commercial uses from child care to medical and dental clinics to grocery stores and more.
“When we consider the range of things that’s permitted, this is among the most diverse zoning districts in the city and really contemplates a pretty wide range of possible future uses for the structure,” Knudsen said.
The university’s new residential village currently taking shape along McAlister Way on the Uptown campus received a boost recently from an alumnus whose name is synonymous with Tulane men’s basketball. Real estate magnate Avron B. Fogelman, a 1962 Tulane graduate, and his wife, Wendy Fogelman, a 1963 Newcomb College graduate, are providing the lead gift to build the pre-eminent student hall in the university’s residential project. The gift will propel the construction of Fogelman Hall. The freshman residence will replace Irby Hall, a popular residence hall on the former Bruff Quad next to McAlister Auditorium. Fogelman Hall will be one of five new residential buildings in The Village, the name for Tulane President Michael Fitts’ vision for reimagining the university’s residential spaces.
It turns out that grabbing a Hubig’s Pie on the way to the register at Harry’s Ace Hardware was a small pleasure we took for granted. For over six decades, Uptowners assumed the store with the friendly staff — and the pies – would always be there.
Harry’s Ace, like the fried pies that used to be on their top shelf, is soon to be filed under the most dread of New Orleans idioms, “ain’t dere no more.” The latter hopes to return next year, but after more than a century, the former, Harry’s, is hanging up its hat. Sometime next spring, the familiar shop under the red awning on the corner of Magazine Street is shutting its doors. The closure was announced Dec.
Graffiti is scrawled across the side of the Central City shotgun that was once the home of jazz legend Buddy Bolden, and siding that received a fresh coat of paint a few years ago has begun falling off. In front of the house at 2309-11 First Street, near Simon Bolivar Avenue, trash has been piling up around the abandoned remains of past roadwork. Like many plans, those for the home of the musical innovator have been frozen in time for the past two years as Covid-19 disrupted every aspect of life here and abroad. But now that the coronavirus numbers are declining and people are starting to awaken from their forced slumber, questions have arisen about what exactly is going on in the 2300 block of First Street and when might work may be proceeding with the rehabilitation of Bolden’s former residence at 2309 First St.
No apparent progress has been made since the house appeared on the Louisiana Landmarks Society’s list of New Orleans Nine Most Endangered Sites for the second time in November 2020. The society said that, despite celebrated restoration plans, the building owned by the Greater St.
It’s been a tough slog for the city’s live-music industry since the pandemic hit, but one classic Uptown venue is looking to the future with plans to expand. Tipitina’s music club received approval from the City Council on Thursday to open a new club next door. The new venue will be a café and restaurant by day and a bar with live music at night. “With Covid and all that has been shut down, this is an exciting thing to watch, that Tipitina’s is actually expanding,” said District B Councilman Jay H. Banks. “Anything we can do to let our culture bearers, the backbone of our economy, to have more opportunities to work, is a good thing.”
The City Council passed a motion Thursday establishing the University Area Off-Street Parking Overlay, making permanent the Interim Zoning District aimed at curbing the spread of investor-owned “doubles-to-dorms.”
Since the restrictions were temporarily established in March 2020, the overlay has expanded geographically while becoming more limited in scope and application. The overlay still requires one off-street parking space for each newly created bedroom in the area, but now it applies only to new homes or renovations with more than four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms per unit. It also features carve-outs for homes with a homestead exemption and for affordable housing projects. In addition, it only applies to residential districts. And to reduce stormwater runoff, each new parking space must be permeable.
