I just came back from New Orleans this past weekend; sorry I didn’t take any pictures. I did however want to talk about the city. I really did not know what to expect when I first arrived. To my surprise I found a city very much alive. There were people all over the place. Granted I was staying off Canal, but on the drive thru from I-10 things were for the most part open. I know I did not go to the lower 9th ward, but there is defiantly a lot of progress in all the areas that I saw.

I did go to the Voodoo Music festival; it was located at New Orleans Park, which is located north of Downtown. The drive to the venue was very nice, and the neighbor hoods in that area have that very much southern charm to them. On the way over the Cab Driver said that all that area was under water as well. It’s amazing to see how far the city has come along.

Overall I was greatly pleased with the city. It’s a whole other world out there, definitely one worth checking out...

P.S. I did get to see one of my favorite DJ's - Tiesto-. It was interesting seeing the Smashing Pumpkins play for 2 hours and then right after they were over walk across the field to see a DJ perform sound good trance...

:yes:

Glad you had fun at Voodoo Fest, and got to explore some of the city outside of the French Quarter.

Federal City construction to make mini-metropolis

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NO City Business graphic

When officials break ground on the $200 million Federal City project in 2008, it will open the way for up to 10,000 new jobs in Algiers on New Orleans' Westbank.

The Federal City plans include Naval Support Activity complex that will serve as the headquarters for the U.S. Marine and Naval Reserves and employ about 4,600 people. Another 2,000 Marine reservists will be based at Federal City when it’s done.

The 162-acre site will be a mini-metropolis with movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, residences, gyms and schools.

http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.co....cfm?recid=905

More on the Federal City project..........
including website:http://www.nolafederalcity.com/map.html

Satellite (Area Highlighted in Red)
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Master Plan
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View From Above
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Base Protection Barrier
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Joint Command Headquarters
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Conference Center
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Coast Guard
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DHS Regional Headquarters
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Parking
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Two long overdue icons returned to the City over the last week; the street cars started clanging along St Charles Avenue Uptown and Robert Fresh Market (pr. ro-bear) reopened in Lakeview. Both have been gone since Katrina. Relatives are so excited about both, another bit of normalcy returing to their neighborhoods.

photos courtesy TP and robertfreshmarket
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1.../large_car.jpg

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links
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/...cars_retu.html
http://robertfreshmarket.com/new_orl...ion_opens.html

[QUOTE=fla_tiger;3159891]Two long overdue icons returned to the City over the last week; the street cars started clanging along St Charles Avenue Uptown and Robert Fresh Market (pr. ro-bear) reopened in Lakeview. Both have been gone since Katrina. Relatives are so excited about both, another bit of normalcy returing to their neighborhoods.

photos courtesy TP and robertfreshmarket
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1.../large_car.jpg

This photo says a lot! Thanks for sharing. :cheers:

Historic Carousel returns to New Orleans City Park

New Orleans City Park has reopened its historic carousel. For the first time since Hurricane Katrina folks can ride the attraction that is more than a century old. Officials say since 1906 little kids and kids at heart have enjoyed the "flying horses" of City Park's antique carousel. That was taken away after flood waters covered City Park. The ride is one of only a hundred antique wooden carousels in the country and the last one in Louisiana.

The Preserve

In a mid-town neighborhood near the Central Business District the 183-unit Preserve will replace a plant where Crystal Hot Sauce, a staple of Cajun cooking, used to be bottled........
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courtesey:domain cos

Louisiana Children's Museum

A 12-acre City Park site, which may include building construction over lagoon waters, could become the setting for an elaborate new complex for the Louisiana Children's Museum, which has flourished in the Warehouse District since 1986.

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T-P graphic

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/...dreams_in.html

Brad Pitt's N.O. housing efforts have Lower 9th Ward in the pink

Actor Brad Pitt is scheduled to announce plans to create more than 100 affordable, ecologically sound homes in the Lower 9th Ward. This weekend, big pink houses were installed in the flood-ravaged neighorhood as symbolic stand-ins for those homes.

Ivory Porter Webb was first perplexed, then giddy with excitement, on Saturday afternoon, just before dusk. As she drove across the Claiborne Avenue bridge over the Industrial Canal, she noticed something peculiar.

A few blocks in the Lower 9th Ward, along the levee from North Derbigny to North Galvez streets, were studded with odd, very large pink blocks, as big as houses, 100 or more of them, with pink roof shapes lying beside them on empty lots.

photo/story courtesy of NOTimes Picayune>
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...large_Pitt.jpg
http://blog.nola.com/living/2007/12/..._pink_hou.html

Apartments for Low-Income Seniors Breaks Ground in The Crescent City
Published: Times-Picayune December 07, 2007

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City officials and developers of Annunciation Inn, an apartment complex for seniors age 62 or older who earn less than 50 percent of the area median income, broke ground today on the 106-unit building in New Orleans' St. Roch neighborhood in the Upper Ninth Ward.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/i...750.xml&coll=1

National WWII Museum

The National World War II Museum in New Orleans said today it has awarded a $42 million construction contract for the next phase of the museum’s $300 million expansion.

Within weeks, builder Satterfield and Pontikes Construction Group will begin work on a 250-seat advanced-format theater that will feature 4-D multisensory experiences and dimensional sound in a cinematic presentation, “Beyond All Boundaries,” for which actor Tom Hanks will serve as executive producer.

Opening in mid-2009 across the street from the existing museum, the theater will be the first of six new pavilions, with the entire project due to be completed in 2014. Another audio-visual presentation will deliver “The USO Experience.” Founded by the late UNO historian Stephen Ambrose, the 7-year-old museum is expected to draw nearly 700,000 visitors a year after the expansion.

Private, federal and state funds are paying for the $300 million project. Related improvements to bury electrical wires along Magazine Street and add new brick sidewalks, historic lampposts and lighted street trees are under way.
weblink with renderings:http://www.ddaymuseum.org/about/expansion.html

NASA Michoud: Research and Development Building

NEW ORLEANS -- Construction officially began Tuesday on a $40 million office and research building at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The state is paying for the 120,000 square-foot building, which is officially part of the University of New Orleans.

Officials at Tuesday's groundbreaking called it a symbol of the state commmitment that helped to keep NASA in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"Just two years ago, many people would have thought that today would be impossible," said Robert Lightfoot, deputy director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Two years ago, New Orleans was still drying out after Hurricane Katrina, which hit Aug. 29, 2005. But the 832-acre Michoud site in eastern New Orleans never flooded: its levees held, and 36 workers stayed through the storm and kept the compound's pumps going.

UNO Chancellor Tim Ryan said several people have told him that dedication not only kept the shuttle tank work at Michoud but played a major part in bringing work on the next moon rockets.

The space shuttle work, which keeps about 2,500 people employed at Michoud, is scheduled to end in 2010. In the meantime, work will start toward switching to assembling parts of the next set of moon rockets - the Ares I, which will launch astronauts, and Ares V, a cargo rocket.

The facility also made the first stages of the Saturn rockets for the Apollo manned space program in the 1960s.

"Since Apollo, every astronaut who's flown has flown on hardware built here in Louisiana," Lightfoot said. He quoted Dave Scott, commander of Apollo 15, when he walked on the moon in 1971: "There's a fundamental truth to our nature: Man must explore."

He continued, "Today is the next step on this long journey of exploration."

The state also put up $20 million for the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, which also is officially part of UNO.

Louisiana's total commitment will total $102 million, said Gov. Kathleen Blanco and outgoing economic development Secretary Michael Olivier.

He didn't detail the remainder; Lightfoot said it includes $40 million to retool for the bigger rocket stages needed by the Ares program, and $2 million set aside for planning, economic development and education.

What it boils down to, Blanco said, is that "Louisiana will continue to have a hands-on role in continuing the next level of space exploration."

BoldMar Yachts

New Orleans lands second yacht-maker

BoldMar will use Michoud technology in super-elite craft

all of this for only a cool 65mil
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Friday, December 21, 2007By Jen DeGregorio
Only a few shipbuilders nationwide specialize in the construction of high-end superyachts, and New Orleans is about to be home to two of them at a time when demand for the luxury watercraft is on the rise.

A Florida company called BoldMar Inc. announced this month plans to begin constructing yachts at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in Eastern New Orleans. The company will join Trinity Yachts Inc. as the Crescent City's only other maker of ultra-luxury watercraft.

http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/ind...540.xml&coll=1

weblink:http://www.yachtcouncil.com/yacht-de...rency=7&mode=4

Religious Street Condomiums

An Uptown developer plans to build a $20-million office, apartment and retail complex on Tchoupitoulas Street overlooking the Lower Garden District Mississippi Riverfront.

The Tchoupitoulas Street building will include four floors of residential condominiums and 30,000 feet of commercial development, said Armbruster, who expects to apply for building permits in late summer and early fall.

weblink to NOCityBusiness http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.co...fm?recid=14621

1717 Religious Street

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1717 Religious Street is located in the heart of the Lower Garden District and offers luxury condos in New Orleans. Positioned in the new Riverfront Development Area, within close proximity to Audubon Park, Canal Place, the Warehouse District, and the French Quarter provides world class restaurants, shopping and entertainment within minutes.

http://noladevelopment.com/move_in_now.php

1600 Canal/UNO

This renovation is being done in large part because of the commitment by LSU and US Dept of Veterans Affairs to build the massive dual medical center nearby.....

Developer Joshua Bruno plans to buy the vacant office building at 1600 Canal St. and refurbish it to Class A standards for use by doctors, insurance companies and others who will do business at two new hospitals the state and federal governments plan to build downtown.


http://blog.nola.com/tpmoney/2008/01...uilding_t.html

New Orleans BioInnovation Center

$60M BioInnovation deal to be summer blockbuster

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An artist’s rendering of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center to be constructed at 1441 Canal St. (Rendering courtesy Eskew+Dumez+Ripple)

Construction will begin this summer on the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, ending a two-year delay on the high-tech, $60-million state economic development project designed to be a cornerstone of the city’s post-Katrina recovery. http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.co....cfm?recid=977

New Orleans Traffic Ops Center

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Crews will begin construction in February on a $12.4-million traffic operations center on West End Boulevard in New Orleans.http://www.djcgulfcoast.com/item.cfm?recID=7571

ICInola

Developers plan to break ground this spring on a $42-million eco-friendly loft development in Bywater.

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The development, known as ICInola, is at the site of the former L.A. Frey & Sons Manufacturing Plant at Burgundy and Bartholomew streets. It consists of four buildings that will house 105 lofts and 50,000 square feet of businesses on 2.76 acres.
http://icinola.com/contact/index.html