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Cultural Economy

Downtown New Orleans’ Joy Theatre to be restored

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The Times-Picayune, July 15, 2011

The Joy Theatre, one of four historic theaters in downtown New Orleans, will reopen as a live music and entertainment venue early next year after a $5 million renovation by NOLA Theatre District LLC, the development company announced Friday.

NOLA Theatre District purchased the Canal Street theater, closed since 2003, from ESE Enterprises, a family trust with more than a dozen members, for $1.5 million after negotiating for more than two years, said Neal Hixon, a developer and partner in the development company.

“We’ve spent a long time working on this project,” said Hixon, who was a lead developer in the effort to transform the Arabella Bus Barn on Magazine Street into a Whole Foods Market. “We think it’s going to be a great addition to Canal Street.”

The Joy Theatre closed more than eight years ago, finally succumbing to the competition from megaplexes with stadium-style seating and a dozen or more screens.

When it reopens next year, it will no longer be competing with those theaters, Hixon said. The Joy will be reborn as a live music venue. The theater also will host comedy tours and be available for private functions and corporate events, Hixon said.

Current renovation plans call for keeping the theater’s exterior intact, restoring it to the way it looked on opening day in 1947, Hixon said. But the inside of the theater will be completely remodeled.

“It’s a complete gut and redo. It’s been neglected,” Hixon said. “We’re going to take it down to its bare walls.”

NOLA Theatre District LLC, a team comprising developers, Hixon and Joe Jaeger, and business owners, Allan McDonnel and Todd Trosclair, plan to use a variety of tax incentives, including state and federal historic tax credits and the Louisiana Live Performance tax credit, to complete the renovation.

McDonnel’s company, The McDonnel Group, will act as general contractor on the project. AllStar Electric, which Trosclair owns, will oversee electrical repairs. Jaeger’s The MCC Group will oversee the design and installation of the mechanical systems.

The Joy Theatre opened in 1947 at the corner of Elk Place and Canal Street and was hailed then as “New Orleans’ newest and most modern film temple.” The 1,250-seat, three-screen theater at one time contained a soundproof, glass-enclosed “crying room” for parents with babies. The theater showed first-run movies every decade since it opened, culminating with “Drumline” in 2003.

The redevelopment of the Joy will continue a recent spate of improvements to that section of Canal Street, which has spent years in decline, said Kurt Weigle, president and chief executive officer of the Downtown Development District. Weigle pointed to the 1201 Canal condominiums, directly across the street from the Joy, the recently opened New Orleans BioInnovation Center, about two blocks away and the in-repair Saenger Theatre, positioned diagonally from the Joy, as signs of improvement.

“This is part of a clear trend of revitalization,” Weigle said.

The purchase of the Joy, along with construction at the Saenger, also means two of the four historic theaters in downtown New Orleans are on the road to restoration. Efforts to renovate and reopen the other two, the Orpheum Theater and the Loews State Palace Theater, have stalled.

“We don’t expect that all four of the historic theaters along Canal Street will be brought back just as they were in their heyday,” Weigle said. “But the important thing is that they will be brought back in a way that’s going to contribute to Canal Street.”

Weigle said the Downtown Development District is working to have all four theaters reopen, each with a distinct and different purpose so they don’t cannibalize one another.

Jindal signs four-year extension of Louisiana Historic Tax Credit program

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The Times-Picayune, July 7, 2011

Standing in the art deco entryway of the iconic Saenger Theatre, Gov. Bobby Jindal on Thursday signed a pair of bills that extend tax credits for the restoration of certain historic structures, including the Canal Street performance venue.

“These historic tax credits will help us to revitalize and save this heritage of historic buildings for our children and the future,” said Jindal, who was flanked by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, state lawmakers and members of the New Orleans City Council.

Completing a massive reconstruction of the Saenger, which opened in 1927 as a vaudeville playhouse before morphing into New Orleans’ preeminent movie palace, hinged largely on the authorization of Senate Bill 63 by Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans.

“Had that piece of legislation not passed, this project probably would have shut down,” Landrieu said.

The measure extends through 2016 a program that provides income and franchise tax credits worth 25 percent of the cost of restoration projects in downtown development and “cultural products districts.”

Developers in March halted work on the $45.8 million Saenger project after investors expressed concern that the tax credit program, which had been slated to expire Dec. 31, would not be renewed.  Builders are counting on about $8 million in historic credits to restore the theater, which has been shuttered since it flooded after Hurricane Katrina.  City Hall has earmarked another $13 million in block grants for the job, with investors chipping in the balance.

In light of the uncertainty, private lenders requested that all transactions related to the project be halted until the tax credit issue was resolved.

Confident that Jindal and state lawmakers would support the extension, the city agency overseeing the renovation agreed in mid-March to advance the Saenger team $1.1 million to ensure the swift resumption of work.  Landrieu publicly backed the move by the board of the Canal Street Development Corp.

Developers anticipate closing on the entire financing package by October, with the theater expected to open in late 2012, mayoral spokesman Ryan Berni said.  Officials expect the advance payment from the development corporation to be repaid, he said.

Fifty-five projects worth an estimated $291 million — and carrying $73 million in associated tax credits — are pending under the tax credit program, state documents show.  Since it began in 2002, 124 projects have been awarded more than $135 million in tax credits.

Those projects have generated more than $650 million in investment statewide and created 11,000 construction jobs and 5,700 permanent jobs, Jindal said.

“Analysts tell us that for every $1 we invest in this program, we generate $3.22 in economic activity and revenue,” he said.

Jindal on Thursday also signed House Bill 348 by Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans, which extends to 2016 a similar tax credit program for owner-occupied residential properties.  The measure lowers from $20,000 to $10,000 the minimum qualifying rehabilitation cost and increases the credit rate to 25 percent for most projects and 50 percent to the restoration of blighted properties that date back at least a half-century.

Jindal cast the bill as a blight-fighting tool, and Brad Vogel of the local office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation called the residential tax credit “crucial” to continuing rebuilding efforts.

“As different neighborhoods pick up steam, it will help to make renovation a more viable option,” he said.

Landrieu unveils cultural districts in New Orleans, Tammany

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The Times-Picayune, December 5, 2008

There currently aren’t enough businesses along the St. Claude Avenue corridor to attract the new residents needed for the area recover and thrive.  But Robyn Blanpied hopes a new tax credit program will help to change that.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu unveiled the Louisiana Cultural Districts Initiative on Thursday, a program that provides tax breaks to art gallery operators and owners of historic buildings in 17 New Orleans neighborhoods and five sections of St. Tammany Parish, among other parts of the state.

Blanpied sees the program as a catalyst for the redevelopment of abandoned buildings in the Bywater and Marigny neighborhoods.

“It will give us the critical mass to make St. Claude a success,” said Blanpied, who is manager of St. Claude Avenue Main Street, a revitalization program.  “Things like this will encourage people to at least come down here and give us a look.”

That is also what Landrieu had in mind when he backed the bill establishing the tax breaks in 2007.  The Cultural Districts program is run by the state Department of Culture Recreation and Tourism, which Landrieu oversees. The initiative fits with his office’s push to use Louisiana’s culture to generate economic development.

“We’ve been trying to get policymakers in New Orleans to see that they have to treat culture like any other business in the state,” Landrieu said.  “Culture means jobs.  Jobs make Louisiana not only a great place to visit, but to live.”

Property owners in the cultural districts are eligible for state income tax credits for rehabilitating historic residential and commercial buildings, defined as those more than 50 years old.  Galleries in the districts do not have to charge state sales tax on original works of art.

In New Orleans, the districts include Oak Street, Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard and the Rampart-Basin Street corridor.  Four areas, the Lower 9th Ward, Gentilly-Pontchartrain Park, Lincoln Beach and Viet Village, were added after City Council members Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell complained that the 13 original districts included none in eastern New Orleans and just one in Gentilly.

In St. Tammany, the districts include Olde Town Cultural District in Slidell. A list of additional cultural districts will be announced in March.

“It doesn’t save the neighborhood overnight, but it will attract residents and investors,” said Greg Ensslen, president of the Freret Business and Property Owners Association and director of the Freret Market.  “It’s simply a tool to get more money for your projects.”

Ensslen said he hopes more local investors than outside developers will take advantage of the development opportunities.

Lynnette Colin of the Oretha Castle Haley Merchants and Business Association is looking forward not only to what property development could mean for the corridor, which is recovering in fits and starts, but also to venues like the Ashe Cultural Arts Center that sell original artwork.

“This helps bring people into our areas,” Colin said.  “And it will help the artists to sell many of their original works.”

Eventually, Landrieu said, he envisions that the Cultural Districts will redevelop in the same way that Julia Street in the Warehouse District and Magazine Street have.

“Those streets reinvented themselves,” Landrieu said.  “As you’re building neighborhoods, they have to have an anchor.  This is it.”

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