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ROLLING ON THE RIVER
From a park, to cruise terminals to a museum, a raft of local plans are being floated to put New Orleans in closer touch with its riverfront.
Never mind that the 4,800-foot stretch of rusting sheds and rickety wharves hardly seems like the place to put a park. Larry Schmidt is convinced that Riverfront Park, an ambitious project that would convert several unused wharves in the Lower Garden District into a park, could become a destination for New Orleans residents who've been denied access to the land for years because of maritime activity.
"Most of the people in the city don't know that exists," said Schmidt, director of the New Orleans office of the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit dedicated to protecting land for conservation and recreational needs. "They think the floodwall, and that's it. They don't know about the riverside."
Riverfront Park, he says, is an opportunity to open more of the river to the public.
He's not the only one with that plan in mind. Riverfront Park is one of several plans in the works for riverfront redevelopment. Proposals for parks, cruise terminals and museums along the river, as well as new housing units and retail shops on the land, are setting the stage for a massive overhaul of the city's waterfront as we know it.
If enough people have their way, music lovers will sway to the music of Aaron Neville in a riverfront amphitheater. Sports fans will cheer for the home team in a riverfront stadium. Runners will match pace with the Mississippi's rushing current on miles-long riverfront paths. And history buffs will lose themselves in a riverfront museum rich with river history.
For the most part, the projects are unrelated. For instance, there is no obvious relationship between the Riverfront Park and the new St. Thomas Wal-Mart. Other plans, however, share a common thread: the changing needs of the maritime industry.
'An incredible asset'
For years, cargo leaving from or arriving at the Port of New Orleans made its way through any of the port's two dozen or so riverfront docks. One shipload of the mostly breakbulk cargo, which included everything from cotton to bananas to rubber, took hundreds of workers days to unload, which ensured that the wharves were always busy. But in more recent times, larger ships, new technology, and the invention and increased use of containerization -- which requires only a few hours to load and unload a ship -- have left many wharves empty.
With the opening of a container cargo terminal at Napoleon Avenue, the port consolidated much of its shipping to that location. River cargo that doesn't go to Napoleon is offloaded at other uptown wharves, or one of a few downtown sites.
That leaves miles of unused and under-used land that many say is ripe for redevelopment.
"The river to me is extremely underutilized for tourism," said Bruce Nierenberg, president of Delta Queen Steamboat Co."If you didn't have the Mississippi River, New Orleans wouldn't be here. The river here is just an incredible asset. People in other places wish they had it."
Gary LaGrange, president and executive director of the Port of New Orleans, agrees.
"It's a changing environment. It's a port in transition. We have to adapt to the times," LaGrange said.
He said the port is interested in rededicating the unused space to activities outside the traditional maritime arena that would at once generate a new steady stream of revenue for the port and open the land up to the public.
That means going "from the old breakbulk and banana port that we were in the '40s to one that is more tourism-oriented and people-oriented," LaGrange said. "It's up to us as the custodians of the riverfront to do away with the old and bring in the new."
The port's decision to look for alternate uses for some of the property sets the stage for a grand-scale transformation on the river from Jackson Avenue in the Lower Garden District to Poland Avenue in the Bywater, unlike any other in recent history.
"When you think about the Bywater area and up into Jackson Avenue, there is a very broad opportunity for development," said Ron Brinson, former director of the Port of New Orleans.
Major redevelopment
Two large-scale projects are in the works to serve as bookends for that development.
At one end is Trust for Public Land's Riverfront Park, which would stretch for about a mile along the river in the Lower Garden District from Jackson Avenue to Race Street. At the other end is the port's plan for a cruise ship terminal at Poland Avenue.
In between are various projects -- some completed, others planned and a few proposed -- on both sides of the floodwall.
The Trust for Public Land has commissioned the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a feasibility study on the proposed location of the Riverfront Park, which would replace four unused wharves that block pedestrian access to the river. The corps study is expected to be completed by the end of the year and would provide a timeline for the park's development as well as projections for how much the project would cost.
The Trust for Public Land likely would enter into a multiyear lease with the port when it's ready to break ground on the park, Schmidt said.
"We feel that one of the interests in that site is there is a major investment going on in the riverfront, and I think developers view that as a very important incentive," Schmidt said.
The Riverfront Park would be an exclamation point on what has been a major redevelopment of the Lower Garden District in recent years. The area has seen the demolition of the blighted St. Thomas housing development and is watching as new housing units and park areas go up in its place. The controversial St. Thomas Wal-Mart opened Wednesday.
In the same area, there has been talk about renovating the Entergy New Orleans power plant on Market Street into some sort of mixed-use development that could include offices and retail facilities.
Amy Stallings, a spokeswoman for Entergy, said the company plans to return the building to some sort of public use and will work with the City Council to determine how and when to do that. What that use would be is still to be determined, Stallings said.
"All of that is a good thing, and we think that we have already accomplished some significant contribution by helping to stimulate development along the riverfront," Schmidt said.
On the downriver end of the park is the former River City Casino site, which Tulane University is planning to turn into a river museum called Riversphere.
"Together, you're looking at the possibility of adding two and a half miles of riverfront," LaGrange said.
Near the museum site but on the land side of the floodwall is the proposed site of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Phase IV project or what could be a combined convention facility and professional football stadium.
Perhaps the most ambitious plans for development are those of the Port of New Orleans, which wants to build two cruise terminals and renovate its existing terminal to keep pace with demand from the industry.
The port is expected to award a construction contract next month to begin work on a $27 million, 100,000-square-foot Erato cruise ship terminal and 1,100-car garage. The facility would be adjacent to the port's existing cruise terminal at Julia Street.
Another project would put an S-room hotel on the Julia Street wharf near the cruise terminals.
The port also is moving forward with plan to build a cruise terminal in the Bywater at Poland Avenue. On Thursday, the port approved a resolution to allow it to begin negotiating a deal with the Maritime Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, that would move the administration's vessels currently docking at the Poland Avenue site to a nearby wharf at Pauline Street so that Poland can be turned into the cruise terminal.
LaGrange said the terminal would be an anchor for other businesses that want to open in the area.
"If you see an old antiquated area, you always look toward an anchor or a leader," LaGrange said. "You have to have something to bring the people to that area. It just happens to be a cruise terminal."
The port also has suggested that another stretch of land in the Bywater be converted into a small park that would feature an amphitheater and memorial to civil rights pioneer Homer Plessy. The port has contracted a Los Angeles-based entertainment company to develop and operate the site.
Safety concerns
Dubravka Gilic, planning administrator for the City Planning Commission, said the new interest in developing the riverfront has the commission bracing for a flood of proposals and plans. The commission is in the process of drafting a set of policies and directives, called Riverfront Vision 2005, that it will use to evaluate the projects and that developers can use to determine what projects would work best on the riverfront.
Gilic said the commission's current riverfront development guide was drafted more than a decade ago.
Steve Dumez, a partner with Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, said it makes sense that people are examining opportunities on the river.
"I think that the success of the projects like the Moonwalk and Waldenberg Park are clear examples of the kind of qualities people would like to see along the river," Dumez said. "The river here is a tremendous resource. I think coming to the river is a great opportunity."
That's not to say there won't be challenges associated with the new riverfront activity.
Schmidt said the Riverfront Park is different than any other project the Trust for Public Land has been involved with because a large portion of the property is not on land. The wharves are on pilings in the water. And in most cases they are antiquated.
"The wharves are in a condition that they can't be used for heavy storage," Schmidt said. Only the portion of the wharf that is over land is being used now. The other part remains empty because it is not sturdy.
There is also concern about public safety.
"I do think there should be waterfront uses for the public," said Jane Brooks, a professor of urban and public affairs at the University of New Orleans. "But I think it has to be done with care to ensure public safety."
She points to the 1996 crash of the freighter Bright Field into the Riverwalk mall and Hilton Riverside hotel as one reason developers should proceed with caution. The 68,000-ton Chinese ship unexpectedly lost power and was carried into the buildings by the river's currents. No one died in the accident, but it caused more than $19 million in damage.
"At the end of the day, if you're inviting the public to come down you have to have proper access and more importantly proper egress in the time of emergency," Brinson said.
Brooks said it's also important to study what affect new development would have on adjacent neighborhoods.
"There are some planning issues down in the Bywater area," Brinson said. "It's a historic area."
Both the Port of New Orleans and Trust for Public Land have held open meetings for the public to discuss their plans for development.
(Source: http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-0/1093757405164300.xml)
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