Over the rusty rainbow bridge right into Galt's Gulch

Oh no! A Bywater hotel project ran into some minor pushback from the neighborhood. What will we do when all the real estate vampires good entrepreneurs are driven away by the negativity of the pesky residents? Who will "create and build" all the STR hotels for destination weddings then?

In an email to council members early Friday, Fuselier said the city has "rigged the process against developers," and blamed neighborhood groups for being "manipulative" and driving economic development from the city.

"All of our good entrepreneurs and people that aspire to create and build leave. People that want to do business here leave. They are forced to shut down or not even try, and we are left with these negative types that don’t really add much to the equation," Fuselier wrote.

Anyway, what he's mad about here is City Council told him he could not build his hotel 4 feet taller than he originally said he would. Also he is still going to build the hotel. He's not actually being driven away anywhere.

Hard Rock fell down. Kailas got up again

 You'll never keep this city's permanent wealth class down. 

The lead developer of the Hard Rock Hotel, which collapsed while under construction in 2019, has begun construction on a major new project in a former downtown office building two blocks from the site of the fatal disaster.

Mohan Kailas and his partners in the new venture are planning to turn the 31-story skyscraper at 1010 Common Street into a mixed-use complex with two hotels, including a 250-room Fairmont Hotel with a rooftop pool.

The project, which will cost more than $90 million, will also include an extended stay Element Hotel and six floors of office space.

It's so obscene you almost have to admire it. 

It’s the first big project for Kailas, a seasoned developer with several successful real estate projects under his belt, since the Hard Rock fell. The collapse killed three construction workers and injured dozens of others. Kailas was never accused of criminal wrongdoing in connection with the disaster. In legal filings and prepared statements, Kailas and his partners have blamed the project’s engineer and steel provider for the structural failure, which remains the subject of more than 100 unresolved lawsuits.

Oh well, no one to blame. Nothing has to change. And now we're right back to building nice things for rich people in a city facing an ever-worsening housing crisis. Yes, there will be a public subsidy. Why even bother asking anymore, really. 

Kailas and his partners in the project, which include Atlanta-based investment group Monarch Private Capital, will use federal historic building tax credits to help finance the building’s conversion. The tax credit program enables developers to recoup 20% of what they spend rehabilitating a building.

Spooky Season Reading

The older I get, the more I find myself becoming a creature of ritual. I don't know why, exactly. I think it has to do with wanting to mark the accelerating passage of the year. At my age, it can slip by almost completely unnoticed if you don't make a special effort to feel it happen. This requires us to participate in the seasons; make the gumbo when the weather turns cold, eat the king cake on Jan 6... wait, are these all gonna be food?  

Maybe not all of them. I'm also in the habit of trying to find the best spooky books to read during this time every year. That's easier said than done. So much horror in books and movies turns out to be trash. It's easy enough to be grossed out by cheap schlock. (And hey sometimes that's exactly what we're in the mood for!) But, like I said, I'm doing these rituals for the sake of.. I dunno... spiritual communion with the season, or something like that. The good Halloween books are more atmospheric than shocking. In the best ones you might even find something profoundly moving.

This October I read six spooky books covering a wide variety here of style, of form and of audience.  There are picture books for children, a graphic collection for teens, as well as some fiction for adults. Anyway, here's list. 

The Skull by Jon Klassen (2023)

Klassen might be my favorite children's author and illustrator.  A girl runs away into the woods. We aren't told why, exactly. She comes to an abandoned house where she befriends a disembodied skull. The skull can talk. It can move a little bit. It can even taste the food and drink the girl feeds it. Or at least it politely says that it can. Like the girl, though, the skull is also hiding from something it will need her help to escape. Klassen's re-telling of this folk tale is, I think, about processing trauma and what it means to choose your own family. The illustrations are lovely and the text is imbued with his trademark existential wit.

How To Sell A Haunted House by  Grady Hendrix (2023)

There's a lot to like in this novel it but it was maybe a little too much TV melodrama for me. The title says, haunted house, but really this is a haunted doll story. A single mother is a tech engineer in Silicon Valley when she learns that her parents way back home in Charleston have suddenly died. This requires her to fly across the county and settle the estate with her estranged fuck-up of a brother. What ensues then is a plot where unfinished family issues must be confronted and secrets... um... unearthed. Drama tropes and horror tropes abound.  Still, it's clever and even a little funny in spots and there are some interesting ideas in it about art and performance and memory.

In The Dark by Kate Hoefler (2023)

This is a picture book about community and acceptance of outsiders. Pages depict alternating points of view between villagers witnessing a mysterious group of newcomers (witches?) to the nearby woods and a competing narrative told by the newcomers themselves. The brief text and gorgeous pictures make this a great read aloud. 

A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories Edited by Richard Z. Santos (2023) 

Mostly a collection of sketches, many of them quite short. Some compelling ideas, though. Does a hurricane leave ghosts in its wake? Is an aging couple stalked by El Chupacabra or the idea of death? Is the noise next door La Llorona or an even more terrifying reality? Little evocative ideas are often better than drawn out novels in this genre.

Through The Woods by Emily Carroll (2014)

This graphic collection was recommended to me on Bluesky after I began a thread of these. The stories here have moody elements of folk tales and Victorian gothic. Much like the short story sketches in "Night of Screams" these vignettes are evocative pieces to read at night. Both of those books were great for Halloween mood setting. 

The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan (2023)

A not-too-distant future Toronto is falling apart. Its physical and social infrastructure are neglected and rotting away amid the forces of capitalism and climate change. Gig workers and civil servants struggle to keep heads above water (often literally as street floods and sinkholes proliferate.) At the top of the precarious social order, a territorial battle is taking place between a corporation in charge of a "smart cities" style privatized district and an old line set of real estate developers trying to maintain family legacies. 

The titular "Marigold" tower is one such legacy. Permitted, we learn, through a ritualistic boardroom gathering of oligarchs somewhat reminiscent of a Comus ball and built, in accordance with custom, on top of a literal human sacrifice, the building is a manifestation of the city's longstanding way of doing business. One of Sullivan's characters describes it this way.

"They would say they aren't monsters. The system works out, so their hands are clean. In the past, people were walled into these places alive. Now when they do it, they'll say it's humane. These people don't care, and they want you to not care either. Everything you own comes from bodies and blood, one way or another. Your phone. Your clothes. The good things you have are primarily drawn from the misfortune of others. Blood, sweat, tears. All of it literal."

In the face of the economic and climate crisis, though, the condo development, like the entire city, is failing. Meanwhile, a mysterious mold is growing out of the ground where all this blood and exploitation was sewn and is beginning to threaten everyone. 

The Marigold is set in Toronto but I kept thinking about New Orleans.  You could probably insert any city into this narrative. For example, it was hard not to read this novel without thinking of the conglomeration of private real estate developers, university boards, and tax exempt non-profits in control properties like Charity Hospital. 

Nearly five years after a team of developers was selected to bring Charity Hospital back to life, the landmark building's renovation is at least two years behind schedule and in need of more money to get the project back on track.

Officials involved with the project have recently brought in a new developer to help jump start the renovations, which have seen delays due to the pandemic and soaring construction costs.

According to one person familiar with the project's financing, the costs have risen to well north of $500 million from around $300 million two years ago.

The image of a city's social elite literally building their wealth on top of the bodies and bones of the poor comes further into focus with this macabre bit I remembered from having read Kathryn Olivarius's Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom last year.

If we were to travel back in time to October 1833, when John Wyeth was digging mass graves, and sat in the Cabildo's public gallery to listen to the deliberations of New Orleans's city council, we might not realize that the city was in the grips of its worst yellow fever epidemic in a generation. We would hear detailed discussions concerning the oyster shells being used to pave a new road out to Lake Pontchartrain; debates about city attorney salaries; estimates for the amount of wood needed for a flying bridge; and fights about the cost of lantern oil for the cotton exchange. Across the road in the mayor's office, the conversation might center on city finances or the schedule of the city guard. There would be little to no discussion about the horrific situation at the Charity Hospital less than a mile away, where unclaimed corpses baking under the sun outside had recently exploded. Nothing either about the roughly 300 immigrants around the corner in Marigny who had just died from yellow fever. 

The elite culture of apathetic fatalism ran deeper than silence. New Orleans's city fathers actively avoided discussing yellow fever, even at the height of epidemics, instead preoccupying themselves with finances, zoning, and parochial matters like bread weights. Aldermen considered it a poor use of political capital to seek out means to resolve or ameliorate disease. Some believed the fatal status quo was intractable and that there was nothing to be gained by raising controversial topics like quarantine, which did little but produce shouting matches and inflame the ire of businessmen. Others were weary of discussing disease which inevitably morphed into conversations about other sensitive issues like taxes, regulation or immigration

There's much in Olivarius's book about Yellow Fever that foreshadows the political response to COVID, no doubt. But the larger point, I think, is illustrated in Sullivan's novel, where the fundamental issue, as always, comes down to who decides who gets what, no matter the circumstances, and the futility of thinking that those fundamentals could ever change. As one of his protagonists concludes, "It didn't matter what you knew. The future was owned by someone else, someone bigger than you, someone or something that didn't even pay taxes." 

Anyway, Happy Halloween.  I suppose it was the spirit of this real estate horror novel that inspired this year's Jack-O-Lantern.  I give you, Joe Jaeger's Crumbling Plaza Tower of Terror.

 

And one more passage from Sullivan describing what's going on with one of his characters whose family has parlayed its wealth from slumlording into luxury condo development.

Another revenue stream, another way to maximize return on tragedy. A building wouldn't do anymore. The very act of holding onto a property was immoral. He reconciled himself to that years ago, welcomed his role as the villain. To be an owner, to be a landlord, meant someone had to be subjugated. The other developers who talked around those facts were kidding themselves, doing their best put some polish on an ancient profession. Humans couldn't survive without a roof over their head. A building gave you more time, sometimes decades. To deny anyone that, well, you'd need to be a monster, wouldn't you?

They only listen to other rich people

Marcel Wiznia's obscene plan to build a co-living barracks and call it "workforce housing" has finally run into opposition that decision makers might listen to. Of course the slow down isn't happening because anyone has pointed out the insult that this farce is to housing-poor working class New Orleanians.  Instead it is because the bowling arcade it is attached to might compete with Walk-On's. 

The IDB review came after opponents, including Kyle Brechtel, a partner with Wisznia in Merchant, an upscale café and crêperie, had complained to the IDB that the Two Saints project had changed substantially since the tax break was granted.

The main change from the original proposal is a doubling in the retail space to nearly 25,000 square feet, which Wisznia proposes will be leased to Punch Bowl Social, a Denver-based franchise that features bowling, darts, karaoke and other entertainment, as well as a large bar and restaurant.

Brechtel owns the Walk-On's down the street as well as the other bowling arcade at Fulton Alley which is also nearby.  He says he "doesn't mind the competition" but, before the change, didn't seem to mind the rest of the project. Now, of course, he's learned some obvious things about it.

"I employ about 200 people in my restaurants and none of them think that $1,400 a month for a dorm room is affordable," Brechtel said.

Wisznia has stipulated that rents for the controlled units will run between $1,376 and $1,572 per month for individuals and households making between $35,000 and $60,000 a year.

$1376 is laughably unaffordable for somebody making $35,000  even if we're talking about a private one bedroom apartment. Who in the world would think it's good policy to apply public money to a project asking them to pay that for a bunk bed? Oh wait... here is who would think that.

Two Saints has its supporters, including Mayor LaToya Cantrell, whose representatives spoke in support of the project at the recent IDB meeting.

Yesterday, when reporters asked the mayor to comment on the continuing controversy over her tax liens, she explained that, if anything, the situation shows just how well she indentifies with the struggles of working class New Orleanians. 

“I will say to the people of this city they have a mayor who really gets it and is dealing with challenges and difficulties her own self, and at the same time doing what it takes to deal with the needs of people,” she said.

As mayor, Cantrell will make more than $174,650 this year. A 2018 financial disclosure report listed her husband’s income as more than $100,000. Last year’s financial disclosure form is not due to be turned in until May.

We're meeting our housing crisis by giving more money to rich developers so they can make bowling dorms the "workforce" still can't afford. But it's okay because you have a mayor who really gets it. 

Every emergency is an opportunity

No, we're not talking about Sewerage and Water Board just yet. But we'll get to it. There's a lot of emergencies to keep track of. Meanwhile, back at the Hard Rock site, the developers charged with demolishing the mess they've made there want to also knock down three more buildings in the process. Is it absolutely necessary for them to do this?  They haven't explained that yet. But it does look like it would be beneficial to them either way.

There’s also a worry that the developers might benefit from knocking down the buildings, since it would leave a large vacant parcel that could be sold or redeveloped to recoup the mounting costs of the collapse.

“All of that is a matter of speculation, but it certainly would result in a larger parcel for redevelopment and no assurance on what would be put back there,” Lott said.

There is a review process that goes through HDLC and then through other bodies including the City Council with probable input from the mayor.  But often these sorts of things get expedited during an "emergency." 

The real problem with caring for the homeless is there's no money in it

Ozanam Inn is being kicked out of its building after 64 years. The reason is it turned out, finally, to have been bad business?

According to its tax filings, St. Vincent de Paul over the past four years has seen a sharp step-down in gross receipts, from nearly $900,000 in the year ended September 30, 2016 to below $600,000 in the year to end September, 2018, the latest tax year filed.

Expenses have consistently outstripped revenues, and in the latest year, the accounts show an unexplained $311,000 write off in the value of its assets which, together with the deficit, meant assets fell to $1.75 million from $2.1 million.

The society at one point operated a half dozen thrift shops in New Orleans, but this has contracted in recent years so that it now operates just one shop on the Westbank, on 4th Street in Marrero.

The article points a bunch of fingers at the St.VdP director. And who are we to say anything about that situtation. But the bigger question here is, was booting a homeless shelter out in favor of a "hotel and parking garage" during a housing crunch really the best solution?  Who decides these things anyway?

Maybe it's just plain old capitalism at work where all parties compete on perfectly equal footing in the fair and free market.  Right?

Demma went on to say that Ozanam Inn would have the right of first refusal to buy the Camp Street building if they could come up with $100,000 "earnest monies" and reach a deal on the final amount.

Last month, Demma told members that 843 Camp Street had been sold to an unnamed developer. Documents showed that the building was sold for a nominal $100 and that St. Vincent de Paul issued a $2.69 million mortgage note to Excel Advertising Group LLC, a company registered in Delaware, which is the official buyer.

Ozanam says their $3.5 million offer was rejected in favor of this $100 dollar up front investment. So whose money is that?  Stay tuned because it is a mystery.

Although the story does provide us with a tantalizing lead.

Excel lists Michael Boudreaux, a New Orleans property management agent, as its sole officer and he signed the sale document. Also, John Holmes of True Title in Metairie was listed as the buyer's authorized agent on the sale. Neither responded to requests for comment.

Several people who have been privately briefed and didn't want to be quoted by name said the owner is a long-time New Orleans developer who has built hundreds of condominium units, sub-divisions and commercial real estate in and around the city, including the conversion of a landmark riverside historic property into condominiums.

LOL, they obviously know who it is. Is it Sean Cummings? That sounds a lot like Sean Cummings. It could be several other people too. (I think the suggestion that it could be Marcel Wisznia is kind of elegant since it makes sense that the guy building a "co-living" development would be interested in a homeless shelter.) But why give us this many clues and not just say who it is?  I'll bet John Georges knows who it is.

John Georges, who along with his wife, Dathel, owns The Times-Picayune|The New Orleans Advocate, said the company — a direct neighbor of Ozanam Inn — is interested in jointly developing the proposed parking lot.

"We would certainly welcome the redevelopment, and I was happy to hear Ozanam Inn has opportunities for other locations that should be announced before the end of the year as part of a master plan to address the homeless situation," said Georges.

So instead of Ozanam buying the building for $3.5 million, we have this alternate transaction where it transfers (for $100!) to a mystery "long-time New Orleans developer" and John Georges is possibly cut in on it in some way.  Of course that looks real bad if it means actually booting homeless people onto the street. We're gonna need some help to keep that from happening.  Luckily the city has already stepped in to facilitate.

Ozanam Inn's plans depend on a broad agreement with homelessness agencies being negotiated with the city of New Orleans.

"We are aware of the recent sale of Ozanam Inn's building, and we're in close contact with their staff and board of directors as they determine their next steps," said a spokesperson for the City, who declined to comment on talk among homeless advocates that city land on Poydras Street near South Claiborne Avenue had been earmarked as an alternative location for Ozanam Inn and other housing.

This looks like it's been in the works for quite a while. Rich developer gets a free building. Local magnate gets a piece. The city gets to maximize the property's revenue potential. All they had to do was scoot a decades-old charitable institution out of the way. Remains to be seen what the city's homeless advocates and their clients end up with out of the deal.  We sure hope it's a "fair share."

Where's Frank Scurlock's proposal?

Not a lot of imagination in these bids on developing the new Disney By Convention Center Wonderland. Here they are.

The Domain Companies, run by Matthew Schwartz and Chris Papamichael, gained a local reputation for projects that include the South Market District, a $500 million development along Loyola Avenue that includes properties like The Standard, which has apartments, restaurants and other street-level retail.

River Park Neighborhood Investors is led by Lou Lauricella, a local developer known for projects that include the Elmwood Center, the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Palace Theaters.

Atomic Entertainment is helmed by Adam Rosenfelt, a movie producer ("Mr. Brooks," "The Barber") turned developer, whose projects have included the $100 million mixed-use revitalization of the Pullman Yards in Atlanta.

Provident Realty Advisors is led by Dallas-based Leon Backes, whose projects include the Preston Hollow Village, a huge, two-phase mixed-use project in North Dallas.

The Woodward/Carpenter consortium is working on the $350 million redevelopment of the former World Trade Center building on Canal Street into a Four Seasons Hotel.

These are respondents to an RFQ so we don't have any detailed bids yet (at least nothing public.) But I think it's safe to say each of these groups would build something that looks a lot like South Market does right now. About the best thing we can say about that is BOORRing! The worst we can say is here comes another round of publicly subsidized luxury apartments and retail in a city with worsening inequality and an affordable housing shortage.

Moving the loot around

The Convention Center has done some re-jiggering of the financing that will go into building its new publicly financed for private profit hotel project. There is a lot of money being moved around here. It's a bit of a shell game, though. A more cynical person than I might even think the entire purpose of it is to cause the Advocate to write this.

Michael Sawaya, the center's president and general manager, told the Finance Committee of the facility's governing board that he and his team had negotiated a reduction in the upfront cash contribution to the hotel project that will come from public funds to $7 million, down from a previously proposed $41 million.

A casual observer might read that and think, "oh so they're not taking quite as much public money."  But that's not what this is.  It just means they're taking less public money in the form of a large lump sum payment from the Convention Center.  Instead they are just spreading that money around.  For example, they are subsidizing a parking garage. 

The Morial Center also has agreed to fund construction of the hotel's $27 million parking garage, which the center will own and lease back to the hotel for a base rent of $300,000 a year plus 2% of parking revenue.

"What we’re doing is taking our contribution and investing it in the parking garage, which is a more positive impact for us and the public," Sawaya told the committee.

Why that is a "more positive impact" for the public is anybody's guess.  It probably works out well for lead developer Darryl Berger. We already know he understands the parking business.  Anyway they're also taking steps to hide their subsidy in other ways. In most cases a PILOT, is basically a property tax break. Meanwhile I'd love to hear more about this hotel and sales tax "rebate."

The other main terms of the revised agreement include: a PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, to the city of between $3 million and $5 million a year, depending on a formula related to revenue from nearby hotels; a ground lease payment by the hotel developers to the center of $250,000 a year, rising by 2% a year; and hotel tax and non-room sales tax rebates to the hotel of 8.42% and 4%, respectively.

Maybe a smart person can tell us more. But what this looks like is, the hotel is shaving its property tax liability by making up front payments to the city. The savings there, go toward "rent" it pays to the Convention Center.  Then the Convention Center kicks back to the hotel some of what it had paid in sales/hotel taxes. Remember the Convention Center is all public money one way or another so this appears very much as though it's just serving to skim away tax money the hotel would otherwise be paying to the city. That would be more or less in keeping with the Fair Sham ethic.

Again, maybe a smart person can tell me that's wrong. Will there be any at this meeting?

Convention Center leaders said they plan to hold a public meeting Monday and have invited local business leaders and other interested parties to hear about the latest proposals and express their views.

Also, this Friday is the deadline for bids on developing the 47 acre disneyland the Convention Center wants to go up around the hotel project. So hurry up and get your proposals in.  Try to keep the prison labor to a minimum if you can.

Also should mention, Citadel frequently does business with the Convention Center.  Is it too soon for them right now?

NORF

I remember noticing this thing gearing up some months ago around the time the Trump Administration was rolling out its new Opportunity Zone rules.

New Orleans Redevelopment Fund has launched its latest real estate investment initiative designed to provide tax benefits to investors with capital gains while helping fight blight in the area. The NORF 3 Opportunity Zone Fund wants to raise $30 million, a news release said. It would be the largest fund to date for NORF, a private real estate developer founded in 2013 that specializes in the adaptive re-use of historic buildings and urban infill.

The Opportunity Zone program provides tax incentives for investors to re-invest capital gains into funds that promote development in economically distressed areas of the United States. The program offers deferral of the original capital gains tax until 2026 if gains are invested within 180 days of sale; reduction of 15 percent for the original capital gains tax if gains reinvested in an Opportunity Fund are held for seven years; and permanent exclusion of capital gains for gains accrued after investing in an Opportunity Fund if the investment is held for 10 years.

Key details of the NORF fund include sponsor commitment of 15 percent of the fund up to $4.5 million. Investors must be accredited and must have capital gains in need of deferral. NORF has identified properties in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston and San Antonio, Texas and is eyeing other areas of the Gulf South, the news release said. The sites will be mostly multi-family, mixed-use commercial and hotel/hospitality.

All I can find today is that short description from City Business in March which appears to be sourced to a press release. But I also remember there being a more glowing profile of the firm itself, probably in the Advocate, but I can't find exactly the article I'm thinking of now.  I think they're still having trouble with archives and link rot at the Daily Georges.

I noticed them again in May when it was becoming clearer that the Trump rules were likely to be conducive to parked money and/or land flipping schemes. The rush to figure out an angle was described by investors as being "like the Wild West." This NORF group continued to show up in several articles as a prime angler.  Already they specialized in converting government tax incentives into real estate profits. So this was really just the next evolution of that business.

The initiative by The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund aims to take advantage of opportunities created by last year's federal tax cuts as well as the Historic Tax Credits program, and represents a big leap for the local developers, who currently have a portfolio of about $40 million in properties. The new investment round is targeting $30 million in equity from existing and new investors, as well as $70 million in debt financing.

The group has plans for two commercial developments in New Orleans, said Cullan Maumus, director of development. One will be a conversion of a warehouse in the Tulane/Gravier area into retail space catering to the medical district. The second development, which the group expects to finalize in the second quarter of the year, would be a hospitality development in the Central Business District.

Most of the group's 37 projects to date have been residential, though it has had some larger conversions including a warehouse at 2740 St. Louis along the Lafitte Greenway, where the firm is relocating its main office from Tulane Avenue.

Among those 37 residential projects was this Mid-City condo development sold to the public as "affordable housing for teachers and nurses" garnering much well-deserved ridicule this spring. I can't confirm this is the same building they "evicted dozens of tenants" from, but it seems to fit.

Anyway, all of this is just background. Today we learn that the "hospitality development" referenced above is the Warwick Hotel on Duncan Plaza.

The former Warwick Hotel, a derelict building that faces City Hall across Duncan Plaza, is set for a $60 million makeover, the latest in a series of recent moves by real estate firms to redevelop properties on once-neglected blocks of the Central Business District.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund, a private investment group focused on property rehabilitation, purchased the 130,000-square-foot building in June for $8 million.

We learn also that,as expected, the project is funded the old fashioned way. On the backs of great big taxpayer subsidies geared especially toward helping rich people make more money. 

The Warwick building is eligible for historic tax credits, as well as the "opportunity zone" tax breaks that were part of 2017 tax package passed by the Trump Administration. These and other public incentives have been key to attracting developers for many of the properties in the CBD, Ragas said.

Indeed, NORF began a new fund in March to attract investors looking to take advantage of the opportunity zone tax breaks, which allow investors to put off and potentially sharply cut their capital gains taxes if they invest in designated areas.

Meanwhile, there is a major housing crisis in the City of New Orleans. You might have heard about it.  Errol Williams says there's not much our tax policy can do about that.

Errol Williams, Orleans Parish Assessor, attended the meeting to help clarify any concerns. Many people came to the front to ask questions.

“We applied the formulas equitably among everybody,” Williams said. Williams said if someone has an assessment increase that they feel is wrong, to bring it to his office. When asked about Smith's large assessment estimate, for example, though, Williams said he didn’t think the value increase was extreme.

“In the past four years there's been substantial increase in values in perspective neighborhoods.”

Williams said while people fear they are being pushed out of their homes this way, gentrification is “happening all over the country.”

“Gentrification is happening not just in New Orleans but all over the country and what you're seeing is people are buying in neighborhoods, renovating their properties and selling it for substantial more. So we can't ignore that. I can't treat them separately,” Williams said. Williams called said it is “a tough situation.” He also said it’s important for property owners to bring their issues to the Assessor's attention.

Not much tax relief for homeowners or the people they rent to who will surely see their costs go up as well.  Not unless they all go out and start their own investment funds first.

Bensonville

The king is dead. Long live the queen. 

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson is purchasing the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, adding another piece of marquee downtown real estate to the growing portfolio of Benson-controlled buildings in the area.

The deal, which is set to close Friday, puts the Hyatt in local hands for the first time in its 43-year history and follows a multimillion-dollar renovation of the hotel that began in 2010. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but comparable recent hotel sales suggest the purchase price could be around $300 million.

Benson is buying the hotel along with two partners, longtime local developer Darryl Berger, whose interests via the Berger Co. include the Windsor Court, Omni Royal and Omni Riverfront hotels, and New Jersey-based hotel asset management firm Fulcrum Hospitality.

"My late husband Tom believed in reinvesting in our community, and that philosophy has made our city a better place," Benson said in a statement announcing the transaction. "Our investment in the Hyatt will continue that legacy."

She's got a point.  What better way to honor Tom's legacy than to buy something that.. for a brief time after Katrina, at least... had a big sign at the top of its tower that said, "YAT" 



Okay so technically it said, "Yatt." Don't spoil it.

Meanwhile, this must mean it's time to update the old NOligarchs map of downtown New Orleans. Let's see, Bensonville just needs to add a little notch there to acquire the Hyatt.  There we go. All better.



Actually the map needs a bit more work than that. These territories are far more overlapping than we can hope to represent in this crude rendering.  It doesn't consider figures like Darryl Berger who, in addition to partnering with Gayle on the Hyatt also is in on Jaeger's proposed convention center hotel as well as numerous properties all over the landscape.   Jaeger, meanwhile, is an investor, along with Barry Kern, in the project to demolish the vacant Times-Picayune building and replace it with a golf arcade. This venture is the cornerstone of what we have labeled Kernworld.

All of which is to say this map isn't a true tool for examining the way the major developers have carved up the city's most valuable real estate so much as it is a piece of conceptual art.  It could be more than that but I think we need to apply for a grant first.  The least we can do for now is extend Torreszonia to reflect Sidney's recent Frenchmen Street acquisitions. The rest of it will have to live as an unfinished project for now.

Anyway congratulations to Gayle. So, hey, as a person with a major interest in the Superdome and now also with the hotel/motel taxes that fund its upkeep, does she just write the check directly to herself now?

Cost/benefit

I don't know how accurate this is but here is a sort of progress report for HANO's plan to "replace" the affordable housing units lost in the public housing demolitions. Of course given the decade of displaced families, scattered communities and other hardships amid skyrocketing housing cost, there's a lot that gets left out in that equation. 

HANO has in recent years worked with private partners to build what are known as "mixed-income" developments — developments that include both subsidized and market-rate apartments — as replacements for its former housing complexes, which had become centers for poverty and often crime. The effort is aimed at alleviating the ills associated with concentrated poverty and giving low-income residents more modern homes to call their own. 

The former B.W. Cooper (originally Calliope), St. Bernard, Lafitte and C.J. Peete (originally Magnolia) complexes were rebranded as Marrero Commons, Columbia Parc, Faubourg Lafitte and Harmony Oaks — mixed-income neighborhoods with far fewer units for the very poor than the former public housing complexes.

Iberville became Bienville Basin in an on-site redevelopment that has been handled by HRI, another local developer. McCormack Baron, the firm behind Harmony Oaks and Marrero Commons, is handling the off-site component of the vast Iberville replacement project and has been working to pepper low-income units throughout the surrounding Treme neighborhood.

Of the 821 former Iberville units, HANO and its partners have fully replaced 579, have another 102 under construction and have yet to break ground on 50, officials said. That will leave 90 still to go.

This particular story says we're supposed to see 30 more added to that total via a planned redevelopment of the abandoned St. Louis Street Winn Dixie. The scheme here, as usual, is to accomplish this by handing out a package of tax credits, grant subsidies, and a 25 year PILOT agreement to the developer who will also get to build another 46 apartments for sale at "market rate."

Anyway, since HANO is apparently keeping track of the number of units it has "replaced" since blowing up the Big Four, I'm curious to know if there exists a full accounting of how much all of this has cost in terms of tax credits and other incentives paid out to developers.  For extra credit you can factor in their profit from the luxury rate housing they've built on the prime real estate they've been granted in the process.

If we're agreed with the Advocate here that, "alleviating the ills associated with concentrated poverty," and not just handing sums of cash to wealthy developers is really the goal of this project, we should also look at whether or not the costs justify the supposed benefits of that.

How is that whole de-concnetrating poverty thing going, by the way? Well, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities..

Few Metropolitan Families Using Vouchers Live in Low-Poverty Neighborhoods, Despite the Presence of Affordable Units

Just 14 percent of all metropolitan voucher-assisted families with children — 123,000 households — live in low-poverty neighborhoods. The share varies considerably by location, ranging from 4 percent in the New Orleans metro area to 45 percent in the Washington, D.C. metro area (see Figure 1).

Not great, then. Not really de-concentrating poverty. From the looks of things, we are re-concentrating it on lower ground and further away from the city center. Here it is on the map. Click to embiggen.

There's a lot of opportunities

If you know where to take them 

A new federal program pitched as a way to aid low-income communities is ramping up across Louisiana, but after a political scramble to make various struggling areas eligible for the tax break, it's investors and real estate developers who are starting to reap the benefits.

Last year, more than 150 census tracts in Louisiana were designated as Opportunity Zones under a provision in the 2017 tax-cut bill designed to encourage investment in economically hard-hit areas.

Basically what this says is the Trump tax cut bill was turbocharged with "opportunity zone" breaks for your local electeds to hand out as patronage to real estate developers who will be rewarded for building more nice things for rich people. 

Another potential hiccup, according to tax-law analyst Samantha Jacoby of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is that the program does not include any requirements that local residents benefit from the investments.

Wealthy people, not poor people, are the ones who have capital gains, she noted. And areas that are already attractive to investors are getting the benefit, such as the New York City neighborhood where Amazon has announced its intention to build a new headquarters.

"While the new tax break enables investors to accumulate more wealth, it includes no requirements to ensure that local residents benefit," said Chuck Marr, a colleague of Jacoby at the CBPP, where he focuses on federal tax policy.

When the law was being crafted, Tulane’s Lalka said it was pitched as a way of enticing people to invest in start-ups and small businesses. But since it’s been enacted, real estate has dominated the activity surrounding the program.

The "zones" are determined at the state level which means that John Bel Edwards's LED got to cut hundreds of deals for Cedric Richmond and countless local officials. The bankers and developers connected to Cedric or to this or that city councilperson or mayor swarmed in to take advantage. Joe Jaeger is here. So is Sidney Torres. And.. well... here we go with another one of these stories.

Let's make lots of money.

I know this isn't exactly shocking or anything but I do like to remind people just how little incentive any elected person has to do anything except enact special favors for the wealthy.  It's one reason, even the feints they make at providing relief for people being squeezed by rapacious capital are careful to treat only the symptoms and not the disease.

Specifically, the council's resolution asks the Legislature to consider a constitutional amendment to help residents whose tax bills have doubled in one year, who have lived in the city since 2004 and who have low to moderate incomes.    Council members said the idea is to help people who have seen their home values and resulting property taxes skyrocket due to pricey renovations on nearby homes.

Often, investors will buy an old property, pour in tens of thousands of dollars of renovations and quickly sell it for a profit, a practice commonly known as house flipping. The proliferation of short-term rentals in the city has made such flipping more common.

The council's proposal "doesn’t hurt anyone who has paid half a million dollars for a house," said Councilman Jay H. Banks. "But it also does not penalize people who have been living in neighborhoods their whole lives, who haven’t ever seen half a million dollars."

Maybe if Jay Banks weren't so careful not to hurt the house flippers, we wouldn't be stuck in a cycle of figuring out what tax credit we have to grant to middle class homeowners in order to mask the damage done by the massive privileges granted to the plutocrats.

It's a cycle that's about to start again, by the way.  I'm not sure how many people caught Banks's comments during the last round of bickering over short term rentals.  Neither paper quoted him on this point but, at the January 10th Council meeting,  Banks said he no longer believes STRs are killing affordable housing.  He even suggested creating... yep...  "opportunity zones" ...where they would be more liberally permitted in residential areas he, or whichever developers have his ear, might deem in need of a little investment.

Lifestyle center

I don't really know what that is or how it is different from, say, a "healing center" other than to say one of those was dreamed up by Pres Kabacoff when he was gentrifying Bywater and this one is Sidney Torres on the Greenway.

A swath of undeveloped land just past Jefferson Davis Parkway offers one of the few blank slates left along the Greenway in Mid-City. It’s owner is real estate and waste management magnate Sidney Torres IV, whose property purchases along the Greenway include the land where Wrong Iron and the Edwards Communities apartments stand.

Torres has been contemplating what to do with that land. Now that Wrong Iron is open and busy, his vision for what he calls a “lifestyle center” is coming into sharper focus. In a series of recent interviews, Torres cautioned that plans for the site are extremely preliminary; he hasn’t talked to neighborhood groups about them or even vetted them to see if they conform to local zoning standards.

Also, bonus points for getting the phrase "blank slate" in there. It's not like that is freighted with all sorts of problematic implications or anything.  I don't know if Litten is deliberately trolling the readers with that or if he is just flattering Torres. It's probably the latter. Not that it matters. Either way he conveniently skips over details of the story that actually tells what Sidney is up to.

For one thing, nothing here addresses the fact that Sidney's development is subsidized in part by a $6 million PILOT agreement.

Late last year, Edwards Companies received a $6 million tax break from the Industrial Development Board in the form of a payment-in-lieu-of-tax program that reduces the company's property tax liability while construction continues. To obtain the break, the company agreed to offer 13 of its apartments at reduced rates to individuals who make about 30 percent of the area's median income.

Thirteen "affordable" (by a tricky definition) out of nearly 400 units is hardly anything to be proud of.  It certainly doesn't justify a shell game operation like PILOT which drains revenue away from public schools and services leaving poor and working class residents at a net welfare loss regardless of how "affordable" these 13 apartments might be.

What's worse, though, is Torres and his partners (Hicham Khodr and Joe Jaeger are also invested) actually had to have their arms twisted to even offer that much.  At one point they had proposed to buy their way out of the affordable set aside requirement altogether by paying into a "homeownership fund" presumably to help people buy homes far away from these apartments.  Then-councilmember Cantrell really liked this idea, in fact.

It's an important point to consider especially now that we've taken up the task of developing a citywide "inclusionary zoning" policy. One option discussed at a recent City Council meeting would be based on an "incentive" model that could end up looking very much like the scheme Torres has carved out for himself on the Greenway.  This mayor and City Council keep hoping they can combat the housing crisis by helping real estate oligarchs build nice things for rich people. Moving them away from that thought is going to be a heavy lift.

That lift is going to be all the more heavy if people like Torres don't have to answer any questions about this stuff.  Sidney is gonna be okay no matter what happens. 

The reason I’ve started looking at buying iconic bars and locations is because it’s a proven fact that when the economy goes to crap, people still go to drink. Iconic bars with iconic names, especially if you have a live music permit.

Maybe we need to start thinking about what the crap economy plan is for the rest of us.  Besides just drinking, that is. Maybe that's what the "lifestyle center" is for.

Clearly this is the only way they could finance this project

Barry Kern, Joe Jaeger, and Arnold Kirschman aren't the sort of people who can swing the credit to develop property in New Orleans.  Humble disadvantaged small time developers like that are going to need a little help. That's what public subsidies like this are for.

The building sold in 2016 for $3.5 million to local investors Joe Jaeger, Arnold Kirschman, Barry Kern and Michael White. In addition to the tax approved Thursday, Drive Shack has secured a 12-year freeze on its property taxes in lieu of paying the city nearly $260,000 annually.

Per the latest agreement, Drive Shack would receive three-fourths of tax proceeds leveled through the newly created Broad Street Sports Entertainment and Dining Economic District, which covers only the area where The Times-Picayune building sits. The city would receive one-fourth of the tax proceeds and is obligated to undertake up to $450,000 in street improvements around the site. If, however, the city is able to reconnect Howard Avenue with the Central Business District, the city and Drive Shack would then split tax proceeds 50-50.

Oh look we have a border clash

I know the old NOLigarchs map is due for some updates.  For a while there I thought I might have to extend Kabacoff's territory to Tulane Avenue. But that's now been occupied by the Israelis so we can forget about that.  Also there are other minor fiefdoms we can add when we get the time. But this is all our cartography budget can handle for now so this is what we have to go with.



We do need to point out also that the regions loosely defined on this map are not very strong on border security.  One Noligarch may in fact hold substantial amounts of valuable territory within the titular boundaries of another's domain. For example, look at all this stuff Joe Jaeger runs even though it isn't in what we've marked on our map as "Jaegerton"

As one might expect, in the world of international capital, borders are not always what they may seem.  Anyway, our map is not very nuanced.  One thing it does get right, however is the overlap and "disputed" designation of areas claimed by Motwani and by Torres.  Tensions there do continue to flare up, it seems.

Developer Sidney Torres IV has become embroiled in a legal battle with French Quarter real estate owners Kishore “Mike” and Aaron Motwani over Torres' purchase of 500 Frenchmen St., a key location in the Marigny’s busy nightclub district. In court filings, Torres claims a tenant of the building, the nightclub Vaso, is being used as a proxy through a lawsuit to win the Motwanis control of the building.

Now that Frenchmen is pretty firmly established as the new Bourbon Street as opposed to the sort of hipster anti-Bourbon Street it had been for a while, all of a sudden there is a land rush. Just a few weeks ago we learned that the Motwanis have taken ownership of the Praline Connection Restaurant which they have moved off of Frenchmen saying "“Locals couldn’t really get down here anymore." They are moving it to... get this... upper Decatur Street in the Quarter because... that would be.. less touristy?  Who knows. It's not clear to me who owns that building now so we need more information. But the Motwanis have a claim on what happens in multiple Frenchmen Street locations right now. That's interesting.

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in this story, in fact.  To begin with we have what Torres wants us to believe is a threat, although his word is hardly to be taken at face value. Here's what he says happened anyway, which is pretty funny to think about. Note that Motwani doesn't deny he's being quoted pretty accurately whatever he may have meant.

Torres cited a voicemail he said was left on his agent’s phone, as well as a phone call that, according to a court filing by Torres, had Aaron Motwani saying that if Torres didn’t comply with demands, “It will get bloody.” Torres' attorneys, in the court filing, cited what they described as a call log Torres' agent wrote shortly after the call, as well as a recording of the voicemail.

“I want to ask nicely for you to call us back," Motwani says on the voicemail cited in court. "But if you want to handle it the other way, we can handle it the other way, too.”

Aaron Motwani said his voicemail was taken out of context and did not reference a threat of physical harm. He declined to be interviewed but sent a text message in response to questions about the calls.

So keep an eye on this. It could change the face of the map which, as we said, needs some revision anyway. Technically all of this is taking place in "Cummingsville"  according to our drawings.  Let's hope no other belligerents get drawn into the dispute.

Shorter LSU panel: HRI sucks

They picked the "1532 Tulane Partners" group to redevelop Charity. What's especially fun about that is why.

The committee released a one-page rationale for why it chose 1532 Tulane Partners. Although it did not list any merits from the winning proposal, it said HRI Properties' plan to create a four-block retail-oriented development across the street from the hospital was too risky because relied on tax-increment financing. Such an arrangement would require local governing bodies to forego tax revenue so that money can be put into the redevelopment.

The HRI Properties financing plan also contained "uncertainty as to the magnitude of state historic tax credits" and "reliance on an anchor tenant to prepay rent," according to the LSU statement.

The anchor tenant HRI Properties identified was New Orleans City Hall, but the company said in its proposal that it had a backup plan if the city chose not to move its offices into Charity. LSU also found fault with the "optionality" of City Hall as a tenant, saying the timeline HRI identified in its proposal to phase-in housing "presents risks to timeliness of occupancy and operations."

They didn't like that HRI wanted to cannibalize local tax revenue via the TIF. They didn't think their tax credit financing was very solid.  And, of course, the City Hall gambit didn't seem likely to materialize... especially after the mayor, kind of free styled some alternative ideas for that at a BGR breakfast a few weeks ago. 

The Tulane Partners group has its own quirks we're suspicious of. For example, they want to open a charter school in the building. Mostly they've just stitched the piles of free money together into a slightly different frankenproject.  HRI's was a bit more obviously stupid, though. At least, that's what this statement says.

Now we know what the "innovation district" was for

The "Spirit of Charity" planning process that has been going on in a parallel universe to the actual selection process for the Charity Hospital developer finally fits in to the big picture. It's basically a way to boost Kabacoff's bid. 

Subsidies: Unlike the Tulane Partners plan, HRI would rely on revenue from a tax-increment financing district proposed for an area of the CBD to surround the hospital. Tax increment financing uses tax revenue from future development, and in this case, HRI is proposing to divert $40 million in sales tax revenue from the 382,000 square feet of retail and 82 apartments across the street. The project would also rely on between $211 million and $224 million in tax credits. The option that includes City Hall as a major tenant would call for $91.6 million in prepaid rent, presumably from City Hall, as that financing element isn't called for in the other two scenarios.

We knew the Spirit Of Charity Innovation District meetings  headed up by Andy Kopplin and the Greater New Orleans Foundation was basically just an excuse to create a TIF.  But we weren't exactly sure who was set to benefit from that. It's not surprising that it would be Kabacoff given the way the non-profit industrial complex works around here. HRI (and, I suppose, GNOF) have also marshaled support from various other gangsters of that scene.

Tenants: LSU was provided commitment letters from Tulane University and the United Way for office space, the Historic New Orleans Foundation for museum space, Pythian Market for a grocery and Audubon Primary Academy for educational space.

Note also the "rent" from City Hall.  That's gonna be a fun budget item to talk about.  There is no public comment from LaToya or any of the councilmembers about the prospect of moving over there yet.  But  rest assured, they've been talking about it.

A recent edition of Danae Columbus's political gossip column hinted at this a few weeks ago. In that column, Columbus (a political consultant who has previously been accused of using her Uptown Messenger platform to promote her clients' interests)  described GNOF's sham public input process as "three lively, well-attended city-wide community workshops" and put a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of moving City Hall over to Charity.  It was pretty clear at that point what development model the insiders were favoring. Today's announcement only clarifies which firm's plan contains that model.

None of that is too too surprising.  But here is something else to look for.  If City Hall really does move into Charity, what happens to the old building?  Recall that this was originally Mitch's idea about 5 or 6 years ago.  Back then, he was pushing several projects at once to redevelop the area realtors now call "South Market District." These developments included the luxury/STR eligible apartment blocks that now dominate the area, a new Rouses grocery, the Loyola Avenue "streetcar to nowhere" and other curious arrangements that never panned out like this "Jazz District" partnership with the Grand Ole Opry. At the time we speculated that maybe that City Hall property would make an attractive spot for more hotel/luxury resort type development in the new downtown theme park.

Who knows what would happen to that space now? There are plans underway now to redesign Duncan Plaza.  I wonder if that picture changes a bit if the building next door suddenly needs to go "back into commerce"?  What would we do with that space?

When do we get to see the bids?

Matthews Southwest dropped out of the Charity Hospital redevelopment sweepstakes today.

Officials said the firm Matthews Southwest did not submit plans by the state-imposed deadline of 10 a.m. Monday "due to the unexpected passing of a principal team member last week."

Well that sounds like sad news. There isn't any more information about it, though. We don't know if maybe Matthews could have asked for an extension. Probably not, given the seriousness with which we take deadlines and meetings around here.  Also it is worth asking how or if this affects Matthews's involvement in the Convention Center hotel deal. It may be that they're souring on that as well, considering the circumstances.

In the opening salvo in what could become a lengthy negotiation over whether the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center moves forward with its plans to build a high-rise hotel, Mayor LaToya Cantrell has expressed “grave concerns” about the large public subsidies being sought by the developers.

In a letter last week, Cantrell said she had “grave concerns about the amount of subsidy this project will receive and the future implications of this project on tax revenue in New Orleans.”

That was an interesting turn from Cantrell last week, by the way. It's curious to see her suddenly serious about the problem of public subsidies for private developers in this one specific case. It could just be she has a friend or two at BGR.  I wondered if maybe she was just mad at Joe Jaeger over the job he did submarining the Harrah's hotel earlier this year.  But that's probably not it since at the very same time Cantrell's letter was published, the IDB was signing off on a smaller but similarly flawed package for Jaeger's and Barry Kern's indoor golf house. Not a word from LaToya about that one. Nor do we expect there to be much objection from her over the ongoing "Spirit Of Charity" process which will inevitably lead to more TIF or PILOT giveaways to several of the usual suspects. For now, at least, it's a mystery.

As for Charity Hospital itself, well that's all up to the state and LSU to decide.  And so we are given to understand the mayor doesn't officially have a lot of say in who gets that deal. Although, in reality, she probably does have considerable input.  In any case, nobody is telling us much about it yet.

LSU’s Real Estate and Facilities Foundation, which is overseeing the selection process, did not release the two proposals Monday. But the foundation said it would make them public before Oct. 4, when LSU's Board of Supervisors could select a winner.

How far in advance will we see those bids?  There's only a little over a month left.  The two finalists were also the finalists the last time we tried to get this done so you can probably get a decent idea of what's in play by looking at what they proposed then.

The "spirit" but not necessarily substance of public input

They're making a big to-do over the GNOF-led public meetings about their proposed TIF district but the actual decision about what happens to Charity is up to these guys.

The LSU Real Estate and Facilities Foundation has selected three developers — the same groups that were picked in an earlier attempt to redevelop Charity — as finalists and asked them to submit proposals by Aug. 20. Those will be evaluated by a committee made up of state Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne and officials from LSU, its foundations and medical schools.

On Thursday, the foundation released portions of the submissions from the three firms that landed them on the finalist list. Three other firms also applied, though their names and submissions were not released.

The documents released are essentially resumés for the development firms. They only hint in general terms at what their final proposals will look like, offering no details about what mix of uses might eventually fill the former hospital building.

It doesn't matter if they say what they want to do, anyway. Each proposal is likely to resemble the next with the decision coming down to who has the most pull with the committee.

On Thursday, the LSU Foundation responded to concerns voiced at the meeting about transparency and released the initial responses from developers in the state's selection process. The state used those developer letters earlier this year to pick the three finalists from a total of six. The development groups are New Orleans-based HRI Properties, Matthews Southwest and a partnership between El Ad US Holdings and CCNO Development.

Those letters contained a variety of information about the firms and their commitment to redeveloping the hospital, but they were spare in detail on what they'd ultimately propose in terms of possible tenants or the ultimate use of the building.

If I were guessing I would say they're going with HRI. But the only reason I say that is because it would make a more elegant addition to the boundaries of Kabacoffia (shown on the NOligarchs map in pink below) than it would to Jaegerton (shown in purple) should it go to the Matthews group.

 

It could be they just pick something at random.  We would never know. Instead the public is being asked to focus its attentions on helping Andy Kopplin get his TIF, although the reason for doing that is also highly dubious.

Ultimately, the aim of the effort being led by Kopplin is twofold: to create a master plan for the mainly rundown blocks surrounding the former hospital and to serve as a vehicle for tax-increment financing that could redirect tax revenues back into the district, for the redevelopment of Charity or other purposes.

Maybe the developers get some of it. Maybe it's for "other purposes." Who knows?  They do get to say they held some meetings and got some "public input," though. That automatically makes this a very legitimate process, right?

Spirit of Charity District

This public input process for redeveloping Charity is curious. Tonight's public forum hasn't been publicized very well. Also, it's not really even about the building itself.  We don't know what the proposals are for that yet. 

A meeting being organized by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, which is leading the public engagement effort for the "Spirit of Charity Innovation District," will hold a community workshop to help residents envision what the district will look like. Design Jones LLC is assisting GNOF with a strategic plan for the district, and is helping gather public input for what it will look like.

But there will be a big piece missing from Wednesday's meeting, which will be held at the Delgado Charity School of Nursing's seventh-floor gymnasium starting at 6 p.m. at 450 S. Claiborne Ave. Although planning for the district surrounding the 1.2 million-square-foot hospital has largely been kept in public view, the plans for the building are still under development and are being overseen by the LSU Foundation (the school owns the building, a legacy of the hospital's status as a teaching institution).

The three developers -- HRI Properties, Matthews Southwest and a partnership between El Ad US Holdings and CCNO Development -- were supposed to turn in proposals five days after Wednesday's meeting, but LSU officials said on Tuesday that the date had been pushed back to Aug. 20.

A month or so ago, when we noticed the finalists had been selected, we tried to guess a little bit about what they might be up to by looking at what was on the table  during a previous round of bids that ended up being scuttled. Note that HRI was a finalist then as now. Also Matthews Southwest is in the mix. They're also a partner in the Berger/Jaeger Convention Center hotel project.  BGR put out a report this week criticizing the use of public subsidies in that endeavor. It is worth paying attention to how they are used at Charity as well.

As the T-P article linked above says, the meeting tonight is really about this "Spirit of Charity Innovation District" thingy. Here's more about that from earlier this month.

With the Spirit of Charity district, Kopplin said that city officials will be able to use a key incentive to ensure the eventual developer complies with goals set for disadvantaged business enterprise participation, as well as pursuing a mix of training and job opportunities. The tool is known as tax-increment financing, or TIFs, which is typically used for building infrastructure, using the projected future tax growth from the investments.

"There's no reason a TIF couldn't support all of those things including potentially spur economic activity around biomedical research," Kopplin said. It will require coordination between officials at the state and city levels to create a path to governance within the TIF district.

"The state and city partnership is vitally important," Kopplin said. "The city administration and the state administration seem to share a view of creating a district around (Charity Hospital) as critically important."

That is some extremely vague language explaining what the TIF would be used for but it is "critically important" that the money be put into a pile for some purpose. Partially because that's what the team of "experts" who spent five days in New Orleans  back in November said. One of them also said New Orleans is a state capital, though, so maybe not the most reliable information there.  It's also what this consultant the Landrieu people hired told them to do more of so, it must be worth something.  Look here they're trying to make one happen to help Barry Kern pay for turning the Times Picayune building into some kind of indoor golf playground. That seems legit. Anyway, TIF first and ask questions later is the order of the day.

So even though tonight's meeting won't give us any information about the plans for Charity, we can assume there are opportunities to ask them what they want to do with this TIF. Attendees could ask what exactly does it fund? They can't just say "infrastructure improvements" or "incentives" without saying specifically who benefits from them. Who gets the money? Who manages it? Who pays the taxes that fund it? What would that revenue would otherwise fund?

Most importantly, what's in it for us, if anything? Spirit? Innovation? The kids these days seem to be interested in affordable housing. Maybe someone should explain how this is supposed to help with that.