Their reputations have faded along with their paint
Airline Highway in Metairie was once a gateway to New Orleans, a corridor dotted with newly built motels catering to those making their way into the Crescent City. As the once-bright paint on many of those rest stops has faded, however, so has their reputation. Travelers and families have been replaced at some of the lodging spots by prostitutes and drug dealers, and once-enticing buildings have become dirty and dangerous.
But the recent closure, and possible redevelopment, of four motel properties could point the way to a brighter future.
Outside the Rainbow Motel and Sugar Bowl Motel, which share the 4300 block of Airline, signs promise a CVS drug store. Two other notorious motels, La Village at Airline and Manson Avenue and Trade Winds at 3616 Airline have been shut down by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, which is now working to sell the La Village property to developers. And Jefferson Parish planners are looking at new ways to encourage development in the corridor.
"Some things have happened there. The question is: Are there things we can do to make it come quicker and keep there from being a roadblock?" Planning Director Ed Durabb said.
Airline Highway was built in the 1930s and 1940s to provide a direct route between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. According to legend, Gov. Huey P. Long pushed for the route so he would have a shorter trip as he shuttled between the capital and the watering holes of the French Quarter.
The governor was assassinated before the work was completed, but the route soon became a major thoroughfare for New Orleans and points west. With the rise of car traffic, there was a boom in motel construction throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
The opening of Interstate 10 beginning in the 1960s changed all that. Suddenly travelers could speed into and out of the city without traffic signals and stop signs, and the heyday of the Airline motels was over.
At some, the clientele of travelers and families was slowly replaced with less savory customers, and nightly rates were discarded in favor of hourly charges. By the 1980s, the motels had became known not for a homey place to sleep but for prostitution and drugs.
In 1987, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was caught leaving the Travel Inn with a prostitute. A decade later, Airline Highway had become so infamous that then-state Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, persuaded the Legislature to rename the Jefferson Parish section Airline Drive.
The Travel Inn was razed in 1997, as was the Town and Country Motel where Mafia boss Carlos Marcello kept his office. Along with a third demolished motel, the Sleepy Hollow, these sites became a gated subdivision, Metairie Club Estates.
Other seedy spots remained, however, and in recent years the Sheriff's Office has focused attention on ones where owners and employees are in league with criminals. The increased scrutiny led to the shutdown of La Village and Trade Winds in 2010 after undercover deputies discovered employees were knowingly renting rooms to prostitutes and pimps. Investigators also found that owners Anil and Mayaben Patel kept two sets of books to avoid paying almost $535,000 in taxes.
Similar investigations continue, Sheriff Newell Normand said, with the intention of cracking down on motels that have turned to prostitutes as their main customer base.
"Airline Drive will be much better for it. It will remove a certain element that has been frequenting there," Normand said.
The Sheriff's Office seized La Village and demolished it in February. Officials intended to sell the property to satisfy the tax debt. But when they held an auction this summer, no one bid on the property.
"We were a little disappointed, quite frankly," Sheriff's Office attorney Tim Valenti said.
The Sheriff's Office is now considering its options, which could include hiring a commercial real estate broker to promote the property, he said.
The Rainbow and Sugar Bowl motels also had problems with the law. Owner Pradip Narn was booked with possession of stolen property in 2007 and in 2009, after deputies said he directed customers to pilfer merchandise for him a home improvement store. And he was ordered to pay almost $205,000 in back taxes, interest and fees after investigators discovered the business had not properly paid lodging taxes or occupancy fees from 1997 to 2007.
Narn and his attorney could not be reached for comment.
The Sheriff's Office never seized those properties, which are now closed, but CVS bought the property in June for $2.5 million, according to court records. The company plans to open a 13,000-square-foot store in April, spokeswoman Erin Pensa said. It will operate 24 hours a day and include a photo center, she said.
A new drugstore could be part of a new wave of interest in Airline, possibly driven by the fact that property values are lower there than on Veterans Memorial Boulevard, a roughly parallel neighbor to the north. Positive developments on the corridor in recent years include the New Orleans Zephyrs baseball stadium, a Winn-Dixie and the Cox Communications building at Labarre Road, Durabb said.
To that end, planners are taking a look at the codes governing hotels and motels, and are making a broader study of Airline as a whole.
"Hotels in and of themselves are not a bad use," Durabb said. "But some of these facilities have fallen into disrepair. There are blight issues. And some folks have taken it upon themselves to use these facilities for illegal things."