NEW ORLEANS | Project/Development Thread

[Uptowner]

OPP Central Plant renderings

[sguil1]

Ceremony for new teaching hospital in New Orleans to be led by Veterans Affairs secretary

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will lead a parade of government officials Friday in a groundbreaking ceremony for the $800 million, 200-bed veterans hospital slated to open in Mid-City in 2013.


Times-Picayune archiveThe site for the the new teaching hospital in Mid-City.
The 10 a.m. ceremony, which is open to the public, will be held at 2400 Canal St., the old Pan-American Life Insurance Building that is being renovated into the administration building for the new complex. The campus, which will succeed the VA hospital in the downtown medical district, will cover more than 30 acres bounded by Canal, South Galvez Street, Tulane Avenue and South Rocheblave Street. The state plans to build a new teaching hospital across Galvez.

Share VA officials, who are encouraging local veterans to attend the event, said free shuttles will run from the Superdome to the groundbreaking site beginning at 8 a.m.

Shinseki is expected to be joined by, among others, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mayor Mitch Landrieu.


The city of New Orleans is putting up $107.4 million for the veterans hospital -- from federal hurricane recovery grants and a state revolving fund for recovery projects -- to buy individual parcels, finance a limited relocation program for some residents and complete infrastructure and utility work before construction begins. State contractors are handling the land acquisition for both the VA facility and University Medical Center.

http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf...etary_gov.html

[sguil1]

More New Orleans Center pics. Can also see the dome interior renovations on this website.
http://projects.citadelbuilders.com/projectpage.aspx

[ardecila]

Looks like they're repouring the deck around the Superdome. I hope they don't replace the original aggregate material... that stuff was god-awful.

[sguil1]

Renovations for properties near the Superdome remain on schedule

Renovations are on-schedule for properties near the Superdome owned by the Benson family, which also owns the Saints football franchise.

The Bensons, through their company, Zelia LLC, purchased The former Dominion Tower office building, New Orleans Centre Mall and a nearby parking garage in September of last year as part of a financing deal with the state. The Bensons intend to develop the Dominion Tower, renamed Benson Tower, for lease as office space, while the mall is slated for conversion into a sports and entertainment venue. That venue is designed to provide entertainment and atmosphere for football fans visiting the Superdome, increasing revenue and making the site more desirable as a potential Super Bowl host location.

Share Greg Bensel, a spokesman for the Saints association, says development on the property is proceeding as planned without any delays. "The building construction is progressing very well. There is no delay and we intend to be finished and ready for the State by this fall," he said.

The state is slated to move office space into Benson Tower once renovations on the complex are complete.

Bensel said that the organization is finalizing plans for the entertainment complex, and should announce those plans "in the coming weeks." The mall's atrium has been demolished to make room.

He said the venue should be open in time for football season, which starts Sept. 9..
Bensel said the parking garage has been open for business, and is still undergoing renovations to "lamping, pressure washing, sealing, striping and elevators."

[prokowave]

The $30million construction of a new dorm at Tulane is moving along quite nicely, with a tower crane recently moved on site.
There is also an extensive project underway to improve the drainage on campus.
Here are some pictures I took of the site a few days ago.

[sguil1]

I think these are the renderings from Woodward design.
http://www.woodwarddesignbuild.com/p...ege-ii?slide=1

[dgpatel]

Renderings on NOLA.com

[sguil1]

Eastern New Orleans hospital owner agreeable to renegotiating deal with city

As Mayor Mitch Landrieu decides what to do about the Nagin administration's pending deal to buy Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital and two other former health care properties in eastern New Orleans, the new mayor has cast the owner of the real estate in question as a bad corporate citizen.

A news release from Landrieu's press office noted that Universal Health Services, a Pennsylvania firm that operates health care facilities for profit, settled with its insurance company for $264 million in losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, yet "never reopened" Methodist, Lakeland Medical Pavilion or the Lake Forest Ambulatory Surgical Center.

The Nagin administration set aside $40 million in federal recovery money to buy the properties, but the feds have blocked the deal because appraisals set the value of the buildings and land at a little more than $17 million. Now Landrieu says he will renegotiate the price or possibly move on to other options.

"I am frustrated that a Fortune 500 company like Universal Health Services (UHS) would pocket a quarter of a billion dollars in insurance proceeds, abandon the city and then expect to sell us flooded properties for more than they are worth," Landrieu said in a written statement.

"I am even more frustrated that the previous administration agreed to pay UHS double the fair market value of the property, potentially squandering precious recovery dollars. I am frustrated that an entire portion of the city has lacked access to emergency and inpatient services."

New Orleans attorney Tim Eagan, whose firm represents United Health Services, said the mayor is not being fair.

"We had over $550 million in losses from Hurricane Katrina," he said. "We paid our premiums; we collected a settlement."

Eagan also noted that the company reopened River Oaks Hospital in Jefferson Parish to become "the first free-standing mental-health facility" to resume operations in the area after the storm. "The idea that we've somehow left town is not fair to the people of River Oaks."

But Eagan added that his clients "have no interest" in engaging Landrieu in a war of words. What they want, he said, is to negotiate.

"What do we do going forward? That's what we need to be talking about," Eagan said. "I admire what the mayor is doing for the city. I admire his gumption. Just call us up, and let us know what he wants to do."

[Nolacat157]

Hyatt owners have financing to begin work Monday

POSTED: 03:10 PM Wednesday, July 7, 2010
BY: Jennifer Larino, Staff Writer

The owners of the Hyatt Regency New Orleans have the financing in place to renovate the massive hotel next to the Superdome and will begin work on the building Monday.

Poydras Properties Hotel Holdings LLC will overhaul the hotel’s 1,184 rooms, double its 25,000 square feet of exhibition space and reposition its entrance to face Loyola Avenue where it will be more visible to passers-by, said John Donahue, president of DonahueFavret Contractors Inc. in Mandeville.

DonahueFavret/Welbro LLC, a partnership between Donahue’s firm and Maitland, Fla.-based Welbro Building Corp., will oversee more than 500 workers on the project. Construction is schedule to be completed by September 2011.

Those familiar with the project said Poydras Properties has completed the sale of more than $225 million in Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds needed to finance the project.

http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/bl...n-work-monday/

Pretty amazing development for the city. Never thought I'd see the day when they finally start working on this. The Benson sports complex and Hyatt have a lot of potential to remake this area of the CBD.

[tennis1400]

Thats great news. Combine that with the Benson sports complex,Benson Tower, upgraded Superdome, streetcar extension down Loyola Avenue, new Rouses Urban Market, 930 Poydras(and its restaurant bars), and the new venture going into the Smith and Wollenskys there. This area of town will see a complete revival. oh and all the streets here are being repaved as we speak too.

[ardecila]

BAM. That's the kicker right there. Now we can get that area back to what it was before the storm, but without a vacant mall in the middle of it all, and WITH a streetcar.

To be honest, I never thought they would find the money. I'm amazed they were able to sell those bonds. My guess is that somebody's looking ahead to 2013...

$225 million is HUGE money. This hotel will change inside and out. Of course, the design could be terrible, but there's enough money to do something awesome.

I'm hoping the streetcar will open up all those ugly parking lots for redevelopment! I'm all for tailgating, but can we move it into some of those vacant lots under the I-10 ramps?

[sguil1]

Construction on new rental car facility at Louis Armstrong International Airport set to begin

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.s...ental_car.html

The drudgery of picking up a rental car at an off-site lot will soon be a thing of the past at Louis Armstrong International Airport, with construction starting this month on a new rental car facility connected to the main terminal.

The facility will include a 30,000 square foot customer service building, a 3-level garage and four rental car maintenance centers. It is the latest in a series of modernization projects for the airport, which also includes the expansion of Concourse D and a face lift for the main ticketing area.

"We must make the infrastructure better so the experience you get when walking through this place is better," said Iftikhar Ahmad, who started work as aviation director on May 24.

The new rental car facility will eliminate the busing of customers to outdoor lots on the airport grounds and across Airline Drive with the construction of an on-site, 3-level garage. The garage will be connected to the customer service building, which will include administrative offices and rental car counters, currently located near the baggage claim area. There will also be four rental car services centers for the fueling, maintenance and cleaning of vehicles.

The entire facility will be connected to the main airport building by a covered walkway, which will be on the west side of the ground-floor baggage claim area.
Once completed, the new facility will increase the number of spaces for rental vehicles from 800 to 1,800.

Kurt Klebe, vice president of the South Louisiana branch of Enterprise Holdings, which runs Enterprise, National and Alamo car rental services, said the new facility is unique because most major airports have to shuttle customers to off-site rental car lots.
"It will make it incredibly convenient for our customers to rent a car," Klebe said.

The $72 million project will be entirely financed by a $6.20 per day customer facility charges that was placed on rental car users over a year ago. The facility is expected to be completed late next summer, said Maggie Woodruff, deputy director of community and governmental affairs for the airport.

[DillardAlum]

This is all great news!

The Hyatt re-opening is for real. I ran across some images of the proposed Hyatt Regency's entrance repositioning on Loyola. These appear on a newly revamped Hyatt Regency New Orleans website at neworleans.hyatt.com. There is even a rewrite of the description that makes mention of "the vibrant Sports and Entertainment District" and "the new Loyola Avenue Streetcar line."



Some images won't embed, but here is a link to images of the redesign: http://neworleans.hyatt.com/hyatt/ho...opPhotoGallery

[ardecila]

Awesome! This is looking fabulous so far - that spiral staircase behind the channel glass is SUPER-SLICK.

I wanna see what the other elevations look like, though. I assume the Hyatt will keep its car court on South Liberty St in the middle, but just build a new "front porch" on Loyola. What Hyatt does to the back (lake side) is equally important. It used to just be a connection into the New Orleans Centre, but now the party wall is exposed onto the new Superdome plaza, so establishing a frontage over there is equally important.

Now if we can just get rid of that damn Post Office and open up a nice path from the Passenger Terminal to the Superdome Plaza, that part of town will be on its way to being world-class.

[Blitzen]

I would also like to see drawings of what will become of the top of the building. The restaurant on top looks so late 1970s, I really hope they modernize it inside and out - and put something on top of the building that doesn't resemble a black sombrero.

[jowens]

The Hyatt re-opening is awesome news!! So glad for NOLA!!!

[SlidellWx]

Some fantastic news while I was on vacation. Glad to hear the Hyatt is reopening. It's about time.

I'm beginning to see changes at the airport as well. Flew Continental and the new flat panel displays are in place. That one little thing helps make the airport feel much more modern. I also saw some restrooms closed off for renovation. I also saw that Westjet will begin flying to Toronto. This is great news for me because my wife is originally from there. It will make future flghts much more convenient.

[Blitzen]

Next phase of the WWII Museum Expansion begins within the next 45 days!!

http://www.nola.com/military/index.s..._museum_a.html

In addition to the next wing of the museum, they will upgrade Andrew Higgins Drive between Magazine Street and the Convention Center.

[Blitzen]

http://www.nola.com/business/index.s..._new_owne.html


This sounds amazing - I hope it's for real this time.