Post-Katrina Recovery

Lakeview Grocery opening caps Harrison Avenue’s post-Katrina renaissance

November 22, 2010 by Crescent Growth Capital, LLC

The Times-Picayune, November 22, 2010

The recently opened Lakeview Grocery on Harrison Ave. has cemented that street as Lakeview’s commercial center, marking a huge milestone in the neighborhood’s post-Hurricane Katrina development.

A venture of Robért Resources LLC, the entity that also operates Robért Fresh Markets, the store opened in October and occupies the former site of Lakeview Fine Foods, which had been vacant for five years.

Father Mike O’Rourke sat at a window table at NOLA Beans on Harrison Avenue in Lakeview, having just celebrated Mass across the street at St. Dominic. He sipped coffee and enjoyed muffins even as parishioners were departing the 8 a.m. service and others were arriving for the next.

O’Rourke said there is no doubt in his mind that Harrison Avenue is back as the neighborhood commercial center.

“We have almost everything we need here now,” he said. “But having the grocery store open, that’s big.”

According to Lakeview Civic Improvement Association President Glenn Stoudt, the new grocery store is an essential building block for neighborhood recovery.

“Having a grocery store open again on Harrison Avenue is of course practical and convenient,” Stoudt said. “But it’s also an emotional touchstone, part of a community that defines and clarifies it, where you see your neighbors and friends and it’s all OK, once again.”

It wasn’t clear after Hurricane Katrina that things would ever be OK again. But the Harrison Avenue commercial stretch between Canal Boulevard and Orleans Avenue has been steadily rising from the devastation of Katrina-related flooding, anchored by St. Dominic Catholic church and St. Paul’s Episcopal at the corner of Canal. Since then, a string of commercial enterprises reopened, led by banks and followed by restaurants including Reginelli’s, Lakeview Deli, the Steak Knife, Lakeview Harbor and Mondo, Susan Spicer’s new restaurant that opened a few months ago.

Taking the place of Magic Laundry and Cleaners is NOLA Beans, a locally owned and operated cafe and restaurant that complements the Seattle-based Starbucks franchise a block away. Lakeview Veterinary Hospital occupies a facility just off Harrison on Memphis, Little Miss Muffin offers retail opportunities and Rite Aid provides a pharmacy and serves additional shopping needs. Need a neighborhood cleaners? There’s Young’s.

With a new public library under construction at Harrison and Canal and the Edward Hynes Charter School under construction at Harrison and Argonne, the only missing puzzle piece was a neighborhood grocery. Now, according to Municipal Court Judge Paul Sens, Lakeview Grocery fills that niche.

“Harrison Avenue really is the heart of Lakeview, and my wife and I prefer to spend our money here in Orleans Parish, so this is where we shop,” Sens said as he loaded grocery bags into his vehicle.

His wife, Ann, said she no longer needs to drive to Robert E. Lee for groceries and that “LG,” as the store refers to itself, offers amenities she can’t find elsewhere.

“The fresh produce is a big draw, but there are a lot of prepared foods that make it easy on people if they don’t want to cook,” she said. “And I think they’re trying hard with that little cafe to make the store a neighborhood meeting place, where people can relax and visit with each other.”

The “cafe” is Harrison Cove, a small restaurant with outdoor tables at the Memphis Street end of the store. It has a separate entry from the main store, in case a shopper just wants a sandwich and drinks instead of rotisserie chickens, bakery goods, wines and food staples.

O’Rourke said the neighborhood has waited a long time for the grocery store, but that growth continued nonetheless even as plans developed.

“Our parish has grown 40 percent in the past two years, if you can believe that,” he said. “Some people live outside of the neighborhood since Katrina and come back here to go to church, but mainly the people we see are the ones who returned to the neighborhood to live or are new to the neighborhood. Now we have everything we need right here on Harrison. The only thing missing is a gas station.”

According to Stoudt, O’Rourke won’t have to wait for long, for a gas station is on the way.

“We never doubted, from even that grim period in the fall of 2005, that we would have what we have today, thanks to all who have who have believed and invested,” Stoudt said.

A Program that Works: New Markets Tax Credits

February 9, 2009 by Crescent Growth Capital

Gambit, February 9, 2009

Of all the government programs helping south Louisiana recover from Hurricane Katrina, one of the most effective has to be New Markets Tax Credits (NMTCs). Originally designed to spur private investment in economically distressed areas, the NMTC program was expanded under GO Zone legislation to include hurricane-damaged areas.

Since then, dozens of private projects representing more than $1 billion in investments have gone forward in the New Orleans area — thanks to state and federal NMTCs and participation by area banks and qualified nonprofits. In fact, NMTCs represent one of the few areas in which Louisiana outpaced Mississippi in post-K recovery programs.

The only thing “wrong” with NMTCs is that more state and federal dollars aren’t dedicated to them. Hopefully, that will change.

Even in these difficult economic times, NMTCs continue to generate private equity investments — more than $1 billion nationally in the past six months alone. Since the program’s inception, NMTCs have spurred more than $12 billion in equity investments nationally.

The list of local projects made possible by NMTCs is impressive — and this is just a partial list:

– Expansion of the National World War II Museum to include a theater, a $60 million total project.

– Permanent funding for the Convention Center Marriott Hotel, which kept the hotel open after Katrina and saved more than 140 jobs.

– Ochsner/Baptist Medical Center, which reopened after Katrina and brought back more than 1,350 permanent jobs.

NMTCs work and are popular among conservatives because they are not a government giveaway. Typically, NMTCs represent the “last dollar” in a private deal, not the first. The tax credits thus help “close” a lot of quality projects that otherwise might not go forward. In fact, every $1 of federal tax revenue foregone via NMTCs induces, on average, more than $14 in private investment in low-income or storm-damaged communities.

Not all projects qualify, and less than 25 percent of all community development entity (CDE) applicants receive allocations of tax credits. Allocation of NMTCs by CDEs is competitive, and CDEs look for projects with the highest likelihood of success.

Here’s how the program works:

When a for-profit or nonprofit CDE makes an equity investment in a qualified private business endeavor, that equity investment gets favorable tax treatment in the form of tax credits granted over a multi-year “compliance” period. The credits are then sold to provide “up front” equity in the chosen project. During the compliance period, the federal and state governments make sure the program’s standards are met, including the mission of serving an economically distressed area. CDEs that participate in the tax credit program can go back for more credits each year — but only if they can show their past investments are working. Thus, the program rewards the private sector for doing what it knows best how to do, and it gets government out of the business of trying to do something it knows nothing about (i.e., deciding which businesses are good investments).

When he first came into office last year, Gov. Bobby Jindal recognized the value of state NMTCs and got lawmakers to put $25 million into the program for 2008. Unfortunately, only $12.5 million was dedicated to state NMTCs in 2009 and again in 2010. The program is so successful that all $12.5 million of this year’s credits were allocated in less than a week. Clearly, this program needs more funding — and soon.

On a national level, the post-Katrina template needs to be expanded so that all federal disaster areas qualify for NMTCs for at least six years after disasters are declared. It often takes that long for good projects to get going after a disaster.

Hopefully, it won’t take that long for the governor and the new president to recognize a government program that works — and to pump more resources into it.

Landrieu unveils cultural districts in New Orleans, Tammany

December 5, 2008 by Crescent Growth Capital

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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