The City Planning Commission will hold a public hearing Tuesday on a request for permission for increased building height and mass
The fate of a proposed high-rise apartment building on Canal Street remained in question after the New Orleans City Council on Thursday gave the project an approval that really approved nothing.
View full sizeThis rendering shows plans for apartments at the corner of Canal and Rampart streets. At the request of Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, the council voted 6-0 to override a city preservation panel's failure last month to approve plans for the building at Canal and North Rampart streets. The site is in Palmer's district.
However, Palmer specified that the council's vote "is not to be construed to grant" any of the waivers on height and other matters that developer Praveen Kailas has said are necessary for his project to go forward.
Palmer also said Kailas cannot begin demolishing the long-vacant Woolworth's store on the site unless the council takes further action.
In effect, the council's vote simply keeps the project alive until the council can take action in a few weeks on Kailas' request for a conditional-use permit that would let him increase the building's height and mass far beyond what the zoning law allows.
The City Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on that request Tuesday and make a recommendation to the council, which then will make the final decision, probably in September.
The planning commission considered an almost identical request in December and voted 5-4 to reject Kailas' plans. When the issue got to the council, however, Palmer asked Kailas to withdraw his application until the Central Business District panel of the Historic District Landmarks Commission could review the plans and make a recommendation on the building's design.
That commission voted 5-2 in favor of the project in June and split 4-4 on it in July. Each ballot fell short of the six votes necessary to make a formal commission endorsement, although a total of six members voted in favor if the votes were combined.
Meanwhile, all five of the planning commission members who voted in December not to grant the waivers Kailas is seeking are still on the commission. Two of the members who favored his plans have since left the panel.
Kailas wants to build a 500,000-square-foot building containing 312 market-rate apartments, 500 parking spaces and 38,500 square feet of retail space, perhaps including a restaurant.
The project has come under criticism from leaders of preservation groups and French Quarter residential organizations, who say the building would be too tall and massive for the edge of the city's most historic neighborhood, even though the site is one block outside the Vieux Carre as defined by city law.
Other critics object not to the building's size, but to its design, calling it undistinguished and saying it would be out of harmony with its neighbors, including the Saenger Theatre across the street.
The $70 million project is backed by many Canal Street business owners and some French Quarter residents and merchants, and it apparently also has the support of city economic development leaders, although Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration has not issued a public endorsement.
Supporters say the project would revitalize an economically distressed section of Canal Street and would provide badly needed parking for the Saenger and other nearby theaters as well as for retailers. About 200 of the 500 spaces would be available for shoppers and theater patrons.
Kailas first proposed a 213-foot-tall building, three times the limit allowed by the site's zoning. In the latest design, most of the building would be 193 feet tall, with a penthouse rising 12 feet above that. At 205 feet, the penthouse would be the same height as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel a block away. The section of the building fronting on Canal would be 136 feet, the same as the Audubon Building next to the Ritz-Carlton.
A draft of a proposed new comprehensive zoning ordinance for the city would raise the height limit for the site from 70 feet to 120 feet, still far below the height Kailas wants.
The landmarks panel's Architecture Review Committee recommended against the latest proposed design, saying it looks like "multiple building facades that don't tie together" and "is still too much building, especially along Iberville Street." The building would fill the entire block along North Rampart from Canal to Iberville, the official border of the Vieux Carre.
The architects committee suggested reducing the overall height to 120 or 130 feet, but Kailas said that is not economically feasible because it would eliminate up to a third of the apartments.
Although project architect Hank Smith changed the building's design repeatedly in response to suggestions from the committee, Palmer said Thursday she does "not think we're there yet" on the design.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.