Developer has history with landmark building
Some of the possible marketing lines for the luxury condominiums planned for a former school building in Uptown New Orleans are almost unavoidable: "Live where Harry Connick Jr. learned;" "Make your home where Ellis Marsalis taught, where Wynton and Branford Marsalis practiced." For developer Jim MacPhaille, however, the chief attraction of the building in the 6000 block of Perrier Street was not that it housed the nationally known New Orleans Center for Creative Arts from 1973 to 2000.
A plan to turn he former NOCCA campus at 6048 Perrier St. into luxury condos will be considered at a City Planning Commission meeting this afternoon.It was that MacPhaille himself was a student there when it was still LaSalle Elementary School.
After NOCCA moved out of the Italianate-style school, built in 1901 and expanded in 1926, it was left to deteriorate. By 2009, with windows broken and weeds growing from the roof, it was placed on the Louisiana Landmarks Society's list of New Orleans' Nine Most Endangered Sites.
MacPhaille, who has developed hundreds of apartments and condos in New Orleans and elsewhere, impulsively outbid a private school and other would-be buyers to claim the old school from the Orleans Parish School Board in April 2011 for $2.45 million, about $1 million above the appraised value.
He then had to decide what to do with the 43,000-square-foot structure. He considered turning it into as many as 18 units. However, neighbors, many of whom had favored tearing down the old school, objected to that dense a development, which they feared would create traffic and parking problems.
MacPhaille, who knew from experience that irate neighbors could derail a project, reduced the number.
The final plan, which the City Planning Commission will consider at a public meeting this afternoon, calls for creating 13 two- and three-bedroom condos and one smaller unit for guests of the residents. The complex will be expanded to 53,000 square feet, and two new single-family houses will be built behind the main building. Each condo will have two or three off-street parking spaces.
MacPhaille said the condos will have from 2,000 to 3,500 square feet, larger than those in some other buildings he has developed, but matching what many buyers now are looking for. He said recently he had already talked to 27 potential buyers.
A lot of interior demolition work and hazardous-materials removal has been done, and MacPhaille said that after he gets final city approval, which he hopes will be by May, construction of the condos will take 18 months and cost $6 million to $7 million, not including the two new houses.
The units will be priced at $400 to $500 a square foot.
For the six-unit condo building he recently developed at 7000 Magazine St., on the upriver edge of Audubon Park, appliances alone cost $110,000, MacPhaille said.
Those units are smaller than those in the old school building will be, and some would-be buyers told MacPhaille they were too small for their needs, though he sold all six at $450 to $500 a square foot.
Before Hurricane Katrina, MacPhaille said, he owned about 350 apartments in Uptown New Orleans. After the storm, "I was sell, sell, sell," especially as many out-of-town buyers were willing to pay almost any price, he said. He now has about 200 units.
He redeveloped several commercial spaces on the river side of the 4900 block of Prytania Street. He wanted to redevelop a former funeral home on Oak Street as a mixed commercial and residential project, but neighbors opposed it, and the project never happened.
Now, he said, he looks for sites with the proper zoning for what he wants to do.
The Perrier Street site is zoned for two-family residential use, but the old school obviously is far too large for two families.
The proposal before the planning commission today is for a "residential planned community district overlay." The commission's staff is recommending approval, and little opposition is expected.
The final decision is up to the City Council. The site is in Councilwoman Susan Guidry's district.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.