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Public-Private Partnerships

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.

Old Universal Furniture store morphs into the Healing Center

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The Times-Picayune, April 11, 2011

What a long, strange trip it’s been for the former home of the Universal Furniture store in Faubourg Marigny.

The run-down building, which flooded after the levee failures in 2005, had a brief but head-scratching post-Hurricane Katrina life as a temporary home for both the New Orleans Police Department’s 5th District station and the avant-garde Prospect.1 art exhibit.

Now, the one-time retail space is morphing into the New Orleans Healing Center, an eclectic, new-age development.

Spearheaded by Voodoo priestess, artist and writer Sallie Ann Glassman and her high-profile longtime companion, developer Pres Kabacoff, the site is about to become a community center where neighborhood residents can buy food from a cooperative grocery, get a micro-loan, find worship space or take a yoga class.

The $13.2 million project grew out of a series of meetings organized by Glassman and her friends after the storm. The group identified a need for a center where wellness services and amenities would be offered to those struggling to rebuild both physically and spiritually.

“We didn’t want it to be a spa or a resort in the country,”  Glassman said. “We wanted it to be integrated into the community.”

‘It just felt right’

The group chose a complex of two-story buildings that formerly housed Universal Furniture. The complex included an 1840s cornerstore and residence, a large 1926 commercial structure and a smaller commercial building, all united behind a 1960s-era metal screen that obscured the buildings’ architectural features. Situated at the corner of St. Claude and St. Roch avenues, the complex sits across from the iconic St. Roch market building.

“When we first visited the Universal building, it was dark and labyrinthine,” Glassman said. “Three buildings had been joined together and divided up. But when we went up onto the roof, all of a sudden there was this beautiful view of the city and the skyline. It just felt right.”

Kabacoff undertook the rehabilitation of the 55,000-square-foot complex independently of HRI Properties, where he is chief executive officer.

Renovation work began last May, financed by a blend of state and federal New Markets Tax Credits and historic tax credits, as well as allocations from city and state redevelopment agencies.

The exterior, where metal screens once hung, is painted in a Caribbean-inspired color palette, with bright purples, oranges and teals. Infrastructure work, including new Sheetrock, has been installed and primed, and tenants are in the process of customizing their stores.

Free barbecue, open house

To celebrate this milestone and further acquaint the public with the project, the Healing Center plans a free community barbecue and open house on Sunday, April 17, from 2 to 6 p.m.

“The Building Block should be open by then,” said Glassman, referring to a consortium of green and sustainable businesses. “Others will still be in the process of their build-outs when we have the barbecue, but will be fully open by May 1. A few others will take a little longer. So May is our soft opening and we’ll have a grand opening in July.”

In addition to Glassman’s business, Island of Salvation Botanica, which specializes in Voodoo religious supplies, medicinal herbs and Haitian artwork, the complex will house up to 20 more enterprises.

They include Fatoush Restaurant and Juice Bar; ASI Federal Credit Union; Crossroads Arts Bazaar, a place where local artists can sell their work; Wild Lotus Yoga Studio; Café Istanbul Performance Hall, a combination meeting space and performance venue; and the New Orleans Food Co-op, a 4,000-square-foot full-service grocery store. Currently, about 85 percent of the center is leased.

A long-needed grocery

Lori Burge, general manager the food co-op, said the grocery is one of the businesses that requires a longer build-out period than others because of the need to install refrigeration equipment and shelving. The store will sell fresh food to the Marigny and St. Roch neighborhoods, areas that have been without a grocery since the Robert’s market on St. Claude Avenue closed. To secure the final piece of its financing, the co-op is trying to recruit an additional 200 member-owners.

Crossroads Arts Bazaar director Lorien Bales said her gallery is timing its opening to coincide with that of the co-op.

“Foot traffic will be key,” Bales said.

Glassman believes that the Healing Center will bridge the Marigny and St. Roch neighborhoods, catalyze revitalization of the St. Claude Main Street corridor and help encourage other projects, like the resurrection of the St. Roch Market and the installation of a streetcar line.

“It’s interesting to me that the physical work on the buildings turned out to be a healing process in a way,” she said. “We took these totally neglected and sad buildings and restored the facades and opened them up and healed what had been done to them. Now everyone who visits … just feels uplifted by the open spaces and all the light.”

Community celebrates opening of Haven for Hope

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San Antonio Business Journal – April 14, 2010

City and civic leaders have officially dedicated the new $100 million Haven for Hope campus in San Antonio.

After three years of construction, the 37-acre, 280,000-square-foot homeless facility is finally completed. Homeless individuals and families will start moving in later this month.

“Haven for Hope is a window on the soul of San Antonio,” says San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro. “It reflects our city’s strong sense of compassion and a belief in the power of an individual to transform himself or herself.”

Haven for Hope Chairman Bill Greehey praised the partnerships involved in making the campus a reality.

“This is one of the biggest public-private partnerships in San Antonio’s history, and it would not have been possible without the dedication, commitment and investment of countless individuals in both the public and private sectors,” Greehey says. “We are so grateful to the City of San Antonio, Bexar County and the State of Texas for dedicating funding, resources and other support. And we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the hundreds of private donors who have helped us raise over $58 million, which puts us within $2 million of our fund-raising goal.”

SAMMinistries, one of the social service partners involved with Haven to Hope, will begin moving single men from its shelters onto the campus. About 10 men will move in each day for the first two weeks and then the numbers will ramp up after that. Women and families from other SAMMinistries shelters will begin moving onto the campus in early June. The entire campus is expected to be completely open to the public by mid-June.

“This is so important because we can’t solve the homeless crisis without everybody working together, and Haven for Hope is proof of the great things that can happen when the government and private sector work together toward a common goal,” Greehey says. “Together, we’re not just going to transform lives, we’re going to save lives.”

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