Free concerts, outdoor movies, farmers market coming
More than 100 people attended astronomy day earlier this month in Rivertown. After news of museums closing and staff being laid off, many people at the event were surprised to see Kenner's historic district alive, if not well.
View full sizeKenner is launching a broad initiative to revive Rivertown, its original downtown, with more events, including outdoor movies and a farmers market, to lure people to the area. "They were all under the impression that everything was closed," said Gail Yeadon, president of the nonprofit Friends of Rivertown. Not so, she said: "Rivertown is being reinvented."
Indeed, Kenner is launching a broad initiative to revive its original downtown with more events to lure people to the area. A farmer's market and outdoor movie nights will start next month, a new company takes over the performing arts theaters in July and a total renovation of the Science Center is set to be finished in a few weeks.
Mayor Mike Yenni's vision for the historic area, like those of his predecessors, is for a vibrant area that doesn't require a government subsidy.
Said Kenner City Council member Gregory Carroll, whose district includes the area: "I think it's going in the right direction."
Birth of a city
Rivertown is where Kenner was born. Kenner's earliest settlers built their homes and businesses by the Mississippi River, the highest, most fertile land around. After World War II, however, Kenner's population pushed north toward Airline Drive and beyond, leaving Rivertown behind. In the 1980s, Mayor Aaron Broussard tried to inject new life into the area with a line of small museums.
But the city's subsidy has reached more than half a million dollars a year, and in the economic downturn of the past decade, museums started closing and businesses floundering.
In 2010, the City Council formed an advisory committee of residents, businesses and public officials to develop ideas for Rivertown. Officials understand how important the local businesses are to the success of the district, so Rivertown business owners are involved in the advisory board and Rivertown's future for what some members said is the first time.
"We all are part of the new Rivertown," Carroll said.
On Friday, Kenner will resume the popular Music in the Park series, in which bands play free concerts in Heritage Park, a green space dotted with replicas of old-time buildings.
New events also are coming. Next month, Movies in the Park will show family-friendly films for free on an outdoor screen, and a farmers market could draw crowds seeking fresh, local produce.
Almost 100 years ago, Rivertown served as the largest shipping point of produce in the south, said Kevin Centanni, who chairs the Rivertown Advisory Committee and whose family owned a packing shed there. Farmers from all over the region took their produce to Kenner, which had packing sheds, a box company to make the shipping crates and an ice house to keep the food fresh. "It was the green gold era," Centanni said.
The idea for the new events is to provide "quality of life" attractions that are self-sustaining through private sponsors or sales of food and drinks and that lure people to Rivertown. Ideally they will return and patronize local businesses.
Master plan suggestions
Many of the ideas now bearing fruit were recommended in a 56-page master plan written in 2008. It suggested consolidating the museums and selling city-owned Williams Boulevard real estate to commercial interests.
Former Mayor Ed Muniz moved the Saints Hall of Fame Museum to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 2007, closed the Toy Train Museum in 2009 and turned the Wildlife and Fisheries Museum into Heritage Hall, a rental space that officials said consistently turns a profit. Also closed for good are the Mardi Gras and Native American museums.
The remaining museums are among the most popular: the planetarium, the Space Station and the Science Center, which is in the midst of a complete overhaul.
Yeadon, the Friends of Rivertown president, explained the rationale: "Take the best of what you have and go 100 percent with that."
Ken Marroccoli, Kenner's recreation director, started running Rivertown in July when Yenni folded the Community Services Department into his department. Marroccoli said he talked with school groups, the major user of the museums, for suggestions about improvements. He learned that "the Science Museum was exactly the same now as it was 10 to 12 years ago."
He decided to give it "more of a museum feel" and, without much public money to invest, put his own employees to work renovating the structure and partnered with two local television stations. WWL built a weather station with live weather feeds to show visitors the forecast in different cities and green-screen technology to let visitors put on their own weather forecasts, Marroccoli said. WYES will sponsor a "Sid the Science Kid" exhibit.
After the Science Center is finished, there are plans for renovations at the planetarium and the observatory, which has been closed since Hurricane Katrina.
In its quest to decrease the public subsidy of Rivertown, Kenner contracted with a new group to take over the two theaters on Minor Street, currently helmed by the Rivertown Repertory Theatre Guild. The new group, Theatre 13, headed by Gary Rucker and Kelly Fouchi, will save the city more than $50,000 a year.
Working as partners
Rucker said the group wants to partner with other Rivertown businesses to attract more guests. The plan is to encourage the main theater's patrons to eat at Rivertown restaurants and to partner the children's theater with other Rivertown attractions, such as the science museums, so visitors can make a day of it.
"Unless that entire community works together, no one's going to succeed," Rucker said. "It's such a nice area of the city. It's a shame to just see a show and leave."
Kenner is seeking proposals for a private group to reinvent and manage the former Children's Castle. The hope is that the manager will produce a variety of acts, such as comedians or jazz, to bring more pedestrian traffic to the area.
Kevin Centanni, chairman of the Rivertown Advisory Committee"We're redeveloping Rivertown into an entertainment and theater district," Centanni said.
Yenni, like Muniz and Mayor Louis Congemi before him, has sought ways to cut the local public subsidy in Rivertown. "There's no question government has to be more judicious in its resources," said Mike Quigley, Yenni's chief administrative officer.
That means City Hall's grant administrator, Michael Ince, has been busy. Kenner has received several grants to improve Rivertown's infrastructure, such as $424,000 from the state Department of Transportation and Development to pay for landscaping, median, lighting and sidewalk improvements. Even the projector and screen for Movies in the Park are being paid for with federal grant money for low-income areas.
Kenner also is on its way to becoming part of the Main Street program, which could open Rivertown to more federal grant money. New Orleans has a half-dozen neighborhoods in the Main Street program, including Oak Street and Old Algiers.
"It's kind of our little Magazine Street," Centanni said of Rivertown, "our Oak Street, our French Quarter, our entertainment district."
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Mary Sparacello can be reached at msparacello@timespicayune.com or 504.883.7063.