Big-box store would replace shuttered strip mall on Chef Menteur Highway
Nearly two years after Gentilly residents gave a thumbs-down to letting Wal-Mart move into the shuttered Gentilly Woods Shopping Center, the mega-retailer has been chosen to redevelop the blighted site along Chef Menteur Highway.
The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority has selected Wal-Mart to restore the shuttered Gentilly Woods Shopping Center. The mega-retailer plans to demolish the existing strip mall and build a 116,000-square-foot big-box store facing Press Drive.Though several facets of the plan still need to be finalized, design documents indicate that Wal-Mart would tear down the dilapidated 184,000-square-foot strip mall that faces the highway and build a 116,000-square-foot big-box store backing up to Louisa Drive. A parking lot would comprise most of the front part of the property.
The project would cost Wal-Mart $13.4 million, not including the price of buying the sprawling lot from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, records show. NORA bought the center in 2009 for $4.2 million with the aim of giving neighbors in Pontchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods influence over the commercial hub that has been out of commission since Hurricane Katrina.
The purchase price remains under negotiation.
Key to the proposal is NORA's ability to purchase two narrow lots that currently cut off the site from Louisa Drive: a former Chase Bank property and a lot owned by Delta Sigma Theta's local alumnae foundation, said Kevin Hanna, NORA's commercial development director.
Acquisition of those lots would allow Wal-Mart to extend its loading dock to Louisa Drive, plans show. In return, NORA would maintain a 1-acre parcel at Chef Menteur Highway and Press Drive that Hanna said would be well-suited to a restaurant.
In addition to three entrances along Chef Menteur Highway, two one-way driveways are proposed for Press Drive. Wal-Mart also would construct left-turn lanes on both thoroughfares, as well as a sidewalk from Stephen Girard Avenue to allow for pedestrian access to the Gentilly Woods neighborhood, plans show.
The project's schedule "will have to do with how quickly we can lock down Chase and Delta," Hanna said. "Our hope is that some time later this year we can actually sign a development agreement."
Construction then would take 10 months, said Roger Thompson, Wal-Mart's senior real estate director for the Mississippi River Delta division.
But he cautioned during a Monday meeting of NORA's board of commissioners that several steps must be completed before shovels can turn dirt, including getting city planning officials to sign off on the design, which must comply with the so-called "big-box ordinance."
The 2000 law requires stores larger than 25,000 square feet to include extensive landscaping and pedestrian amenities, provide multiple entrances and limit the number and size of signs, among other specifications. Wal-Mart's development team for the Gentilly Woods project includes architects and engineers who participated in the construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Tchoupitoulas Street as part of the redevelopment of the former St. Thomas public housing complex, records show.
"We're anxious to get started, we're anxious to start in the process, and we look forward to bringing it to successful completion," Thompson said.
NORA officials in 2009 rejected Wal-Mart's proposal to build a 93,000-square-foot store at the Gentilly Woods site amid objections from neighbors who said they wanted a retail mix. But the agency's deal with the winning developer, which planned to bring in a department store and a full-service grocery as anchor tenants, fell through in late 2010.
A new solicitation this year drew three offers, though officials dismissed one as incomplete. After a public meeting this month, NORA picked Wal-Mart over Michaels Development Co., a New Jersey-based builder that had proposed a mix of smaller-scale retail and 135 mixed-income apartments,
More than 250 residents who attended the session generally rejected the concept, saying the area, which has been slow to rebound from Katrina, doesn't need more housing.
"If you have been in a room with (several hundred) people, when they don't like something, there was mumbling and grumbling going on, and it was pretty clear what was going on at that point," NORA commission chairman Jim Singleton said Monday, adding that the residential component "was just a little bit more than what the people out there wanted to deal with."
Singleton suggested that City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, whose district includes the property, consider proposing an overlay district to prevent low-end retailers from trying to set up in Walmart's wake.
"I would hate to see what I've seen on Broad Street at Canal and then Bienville, two dollar stores open up two blocks from one another," he said.
Hanna noted that the Walmart proposal appealed to NORA officials in part because the retailer did not seek public subsidies. In its solicitation, the agency indicated it could furnish as much as $4.5 million in federal block grants for the project.
"They don't need any government incentive to get the deal done," he said.
Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3312.