colleges

Grant to spend $250,000 to make streets around Audubon Charter campuses more walkable

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The sidewalks and crosswalks around Audubon Charter School will be made safer and more walkable with $250,000 worth of upgrades, based on a federal grant secured by a Tulane public health program, officials said. Details of the effort to create safer routes to the school, according to KidsWalk Coalition program manager Matthew Rufo, include:

Sidewalks will be repaired along two designated routes that include Pitt, Pine, Garfield, Lowerline, Prytania and Hurst Streets. High-visibility crosswalks will be installed at the four corners of the school’s campus. Flashing school zone beacons will be installed at the existing school zone signs on Broadway and on S. Carrollton. Pedestrian countdown signals will be installed at the intersection of St.

city government

Tulane stadium Park & Ride plan, restricted street access raise neighbors’ questions

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Tulane University described its plans Monday night to shuttle football fans to its proposed Uptown stadium from parking lots around the city, but nearby residents continue to question how they will access their own homes on game days. Of a 30,000-person sellout crowd at the stadium, only about 21,000 would be expected to drive, creating a need for more than 8,000 parking spaces at a game, consultants told a crowd of about 150 people Monday evening at the Audubon Tea Room. A significant portion of those could be handled by more than 2,000 on-campus spaces owned by Tulane or leased from Loyola, but the remainder would have to be absorbed by local businesses, private lots served by Tulane shuttles, or on-street parking, the consultants said. The first questions about the plan Monday night came from City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, who wanted to know specifically where the Park & Ride lots would be located. Doug Thornton, senior vice president of SMG — the management company that runs the Superdome and is consulting on the Tulane stadium project — said that the lots are not yet under contract, and that it would be unfair to their owners to name them publicly before the arrangements are finalized.

city government

Sunday survey: What do you think about the Tulane stadium?

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Over the past week or so, the prospects for Tulane’s proposed Uptown stadium appear to have improved considerably. A measure that would have required the university to receive the city’s approval for the project (known as an interim zoning district, or IZD) received a negative recommendation from the City Planning Commission, whose members said Tulane should only be held to current law, which allows construction of the stadium by right. Even if the City Council passes the IZD anyway, it is unclear whether its proponents could then muster five votes to overrule a veto by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. (Tulane will hold its second community forum on the stadium, concerning traffic and parking issues, at 6 p.m. Monday at the Audubon Tea Room, 6500 Magazine Street.)

What do you think? Is Tulane within its rights to build a football stadium on campus?

city government

Tulane asks city council to withdraw zoning district or vote as soon as possible

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Seeking to build on favorable momentum created by the City Planning Commission’s vote Tuesday to recommend against a special zoning district that would require Tulane to seek the city’s permission to build a football stadium on its Uptown campus, university president Scott Cowen publicly urged city council members Wednesday to either withdraw the motion altogether or vote on it before the month is out. The university posted a letter addressed to Councilwoman Susan Guidry and copied to each of her six colleagues late Wednesday afternoon on its official website for the stadium. The website also calls on supporters to email council members with language urging the council to withdraw the measure. “Now that the Commission has made its recommendation after thoughtful deliberation, I respectfully request this item either be heard at your next meeting on June 28 or be withdrawn given the recommendation of the City Planning Commission,” Cowen writes in his letter. “We want to get this issue behind us to minimize further damage to the university and to continue our planning and dialogue with the community and appropriate city departments without the uncertainty this process has brought.”

city government

Tulane chalks up win in latest round of stadium battle

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The law that allows Tulane to build a football stadium on campus without any oversight from city leaders may be out of date, and the construction project may raise serious issues that need more scrutiny, but the university ought not to be made to follow regulations that are not yet on the books, the city planning commission ruled on Tuesday. By a 7-1 vote, the commissioners will recommend against creating an interim zoning district that would require universities to seek city permission for large construction projects. What remains to be seen is whether Tulane’s victory Tuesday is fleeting — as the same City Council members who voted to begin the IZD process can ignore the recommendation and vote to approve it — or if it provides a spark of momentum that builds into a win before the City Council as well. The proposed stadium is a permitted use of Tulane’s land under its current zoning, so the interim zoning district was originally conceived by Councilwoman Susan Guidry as way to create a public forum and review of the project. The district was forwarded to the city planning commission by with the assent of three other council members, but the city’s planning staff drafted a report suggesting the district would be an improper way of settling the issues raised by the stadium.

colleges

Zoning district around Tulane stadium gets negative first look by city officials

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Uptown residents who want the city to create a formal review process over the proposed construction of Tulane’s football stadium will head into a meeting Tuesday with one strike against them: the City Planning staff recommends against creating an interim zoning district governing large university construction projects. The zoning district issue is far from decided, and no one step appears to have much bearing on any other. The staff report will be used to familiarize the City Planning commissioners with the issue, and they will then make a recommendation to the City Council — often differing in opinion from the staff report. The City Council (which requested the zoning district originally by a 4-2 vote) can then make its own decision, and it can easily disagree with the City Planning Commission. Finally, the mayor (who opposes the district) can then veto the City Council decision, and it will require a five-vote majority to overrule him — all with Tulane’s lawsuit against the city council looming over the issue.

colleges

Tulane officials, architects field questions about proposed stadium

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A number of initial questions were answered and many more new ones were raised Wednesday night when Tulane University officials met with hundreds of Uptown residents about plans to build a football stadium on campus. After an hour-long presentation on the stadium’s design before an estimated 200 people, some residents said they liked what they heard. The stadium will only be used for one game per week, officials said — either a Tulane home game, almost always on a Saturday, or a single high school football game on the weekends when Tulane is not playing. Further, events like rock concerts are completely off the table for a number of operational reasons, officials said. Other residents remained frustrated.

colleges

Tulane to provide free parking, shuttle service to meeting about stadium

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Tulane University is providing free parking in a lot on Claiborne Avenue for tonight’s community forum about its proposed on-campus stadium and shuttle service to the meeting location on the opposite end of campus, officials said. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in room 201 of Richardson Memorial Hall, which is on the Gibson Quad near St. Charles Avenue. Free parking will be available in the Rosen lot on South Claiborne Avenue between Calhoun Street and Audubon Boulevard, and a shuttle will begin carrying attendees from the Rosen lot to Richardson at 5:30 p.m., said university spokesman Mike Strecker. The shuttle service will run to 8 p.m., he said.

city government

Next steps in the Tulane Stadium debate soon to begin

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The second round of debate over the Uptown football stadium proposed by Tulane University is slated to start soon, with the university meeting with the community over design issues next week, and the New Orleans City Planning Commission studying the interim zoning district the week after that. The June 12 planning commission hearing is not slated to address the specifics of the Tulane project in particular. Instead, the agenda item is “to consider the establishment of an Interim Zoning district, to prohibit the construction of any building or facility within college and university campuses that will result in a building or facility in excess of 250,000 square feet of gross floor area and will cover a footprint of more than 50,000 square feet within any residential zoning district” in older areas of the city. The issue debated that day will likely be along the same lines as the contentious May meeting in which the City Council proposed the interim zoning district, as planning commissioners decide whether the city should give itself jurisdiction over a stadium-sized project on a university campus. Their decision will come in the form of a recommendation back to the City Council, who will then vote again on the concept.

city government

Guest column: Tulane stadium — There must be a better way

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By Nick Kindel

Perhaps it is inevitable that there will be tensions – and even friction – when a major institution is located in a residential area.  But is it really necessary for this to rise to the level of acrimony and divisiveness that currently characterizes the Tulane University stadium proposal? Last year, a contingent of neighborhood, business and government leaders from Birmingham, Alabama – a city not unlike New Orleans – traveled here to share information about their Citizen Participation Program (CPP).  They described it as a three-legged stool that united community, business and government in moving their city forward. In particular, former Princeton Baptist Hospital CEO Charlie Faulkner cited Birmingham’s CPP as essential to addressing neighborhood concerns while allowing his hospital to expand in a residential area.  While the hospital did expand its footprint, the surrounding neighborhoods were compensated by renovation of blighted housing, jobs for neighborhood residents at the hospital, and contributions of equipment, supplies and other support for community facilities. Contrast this with the current situation in the areas surrounding Tulane, where neighborhoods have stated their mistrust of the university, neighbors are arguing with other neighbors, Tulane has sued the city, and the stadium plans are on hold. Among their numerous other benefits, CPPs are designed to bring developers and residents together to discuss legitimate concerns surrounding project proposals.