Despite rumors in recent days that two of the three groups seeking the right to redevelop the city-owned World Trade Center site at the foot of Canal Street were thinking of combining their seemingly incompatible proposals, the groups' latest submissions to the city indicate they are proceeding with their separate plans, at least officially. However, the submissions also indicate a...
Despite rumors in recent days that two of the three groups seeking the right to redevelop the city-owned World Trade Center site at the foot of Canal Street were thinking of combining their seemingly incompatible proposals, the groups' latest submissions to the city indicate they are proceeding with their separate plans, at least officially.
However, the submissions also indicate a desire to tone down the sometimes hostile rhetoric between the two camps so that they can work together once one plan is selected. And on the eve of a meeting at which the three groups will make public presentations of their plans to a city selection committee, one of the groups is starting to sound as if it recognizes it is unlikely to win the competition.
That is the Tricentennnial Consortium, a coalition of leaders of the city's major tourism organizations, which has proposed tearing down the former World Trade Center building, a vacant 33-story office tower, to create a large public open space. The group also has proposed building a new but undefined "iconic structure," perhaps with an observation deck high in the sky, that it says would help draw new tourists to New Orleans.
The consortium's chances, always in some question because of the vagueness of its plans, were further hurt when Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed a bill that would have let the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center contribute much of the needed money, including $25 million to demolish the old building.
The other two proposals, from Gatehouse Capital and James H. Burch LLC, propose keeping the building and redeveloping it as primarily a hotel and residential building. Gatehouse took the lead in urging local preservationists to pressure the city to preserve the 1960s building, designed by famed modernist architect Edward Durell Stone and a fixture on the city's skyline for decades.
In response to questions from a five-member administration selection committee that will hold its second meeting Tuesday, the three groups submitted further elaboration on their plans to the city Friday. They also will be able to make 30-minute presentations each when the committee meets at 10 a.m. in the City Council chamber. The panel is not expected to make a final recommendation until next month.
There were reports last week that Tricentennial and Gatehouse were talking to each other about combining forces, although it is far from clear that the city's committee would be either willing or legally able to accept a radically revised proposal from those submitted by the deadline in April.
However, the latest submissions, made public Monday, show that each is still pushing its original idea.
The Tricentennial document dismisses the tower as "by no means in the top tier" of architect Stone's work and recalls fondly the days before it was built, when "the vista from our world-famous Canal Street allowed views directly to the river." The 33-story building, it suggests, was "a visually harsh intrusion" into those views and is neither "iconic" nor "historic." It should be demolished, the tourism leaders reiterate, rather than turned over to private developers whose goal is making money, not boosting New Orleans as an even more popular tourism destination -- where, presumably, current hotels and other businesses would be able to make more money.
But even though the latest submission argues that the 2-acre WTC site is essential to creating the full 8-acre public space, or "civic footprint," that the tourism leaders envision, it also recognizes that the city may want to keep the building, "whether it be for reasons of expediency, preservation advocacy, lucre or just plain 'deal fatigue.'"
In that case, says the document -- signed by Mark Romig, president of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp. -- the Tricentennial Consortium would be willing to work with the city and others to "create a comprehensive vision for the entire site" that would retain the building but place its redevelopment in a broader context of "public aspirations" for the foot of Canal Street. To achieve that, it suggests the city could throw out all the current proposals and seek new ones.
For its part, Gatehouse declares that its redevelopment plan would "dramatically improve the pedestrian experience from all directions in this section of the city in a way that demolition and green space simply cannot." It also calls the WTC building "objectively iconic" and says its redevelopment is essential to upgrading the area.
But Gatehouse also says that "rebranding the new and improved riverfront district Tricentennial Park in advance of 2018 could be an exciting opportunity for the city." It adds that a "unique new city attraction/sculpture for the riverfront or elsewhere ... is a wonderful possibility to consider as well" -- in other words, the tourism leaders' vision of an "iconic structure" comparable to St. Louis' Gateway Arch, only not at the WTC site.
"To the extent we can work collaboratively with the tourism industry," the Gateway submission adds, the $25 million saved by not demolishing the WTC building could "help fund some of the planned civic space improvements instead."