18 replies to this topic

[Jim856796]

The New Orleans World Trade Centre is a 33-story, 407-foot skyscraper on the riverfront. this thread focuses on the building's conversion into a 900-room hotel.

There has been a recent proposal to turn this building into a hotel. It was originally going to be 653 rooms in the upper 18 floors. now this has been increased to 900 rooms. A new 500,000-square-foot convention centre will be created at the tower's base. This is currently an office building, so does the conversion to hotel use mean there won't be any office space left? a World trade centre is supposed to have offices.

[TSmith]

I'm not sure I understand the intent of this thread.

[tennis1400]

Well it wont be the World Trade Center anymore! To be hones most of its tenants left years ago. The building is quite old! So yes it probably will change to another name, yet pay some sort of homage to the buildings past. The wtc just really wants to keep its official offices there and the Pimsoll Club!

[SBCmetroguy]

Isn't this building located not very far from the huge Morial Convention Center? 500,000 square feet is extremely large. At current the Shreveport Convention Center is the second-largest in the state, and it's only about 350,000 square feet. The Baton Rouge convention center isn't very far behind that... and both of these are large centers for these cities. At 500,000 square feet, this is a serious convention center... the Morial center is an abnormally large behemoth which New Orleans is EXTEMELY fortunate to have.

So my question is this: will a 500,000 square-foot convention center help the New Orleans convention market by allowing conventions to be held there which couldn't before, because of the success of the Morial convention center, or do New Orleanians think this will take away from the Morial? I would hate to see it take away from the Morial.

By the way, it is called the Morial still, isn't it? Sorry if it's been renamed and I didn't get the memo.

[tennis1400]

New Orleans does have one of the biggest convention markets in the nation. However, it could be bigger! Shreveport and Baton Rouge are just on a different level from New Orleans! The advantage this 500,000 sft convention center would have is that it would be privately owned! Like the Venetian and Mandalay Bay convention centers in Las Vegas! Many convention leaders have complained about the citys lack of a giant private venue connected to at least 3000 rooms! At this location, there at least 5,000 rooms accross the street on all sides! Its another niche market in the convention industry the city should go after!

[SUSAstudent]

I remember reading somewhere that Ernest Morial Convention Center received a massive expansion a few months back . . I remember seeing the convention center ranked with those of Vegas, Miami, and Los Angeles, with a total of 1.1 million square feet.

[blackcoat]

As far as I know, the only recent work on the convention center involved improvements to the existing structure, as plans for the Phase IV expansion were scrapped after Katrina and demand for convention space is declining.  That being said, the Morial Convention Center is a behemoth occupying 10 ½ city   blocks (though the building is wider than a single block, so that large figure is deceptively small).  And the 1.1 million square feet:  that's just the exhibit space on the first floor.

Edited by blackcoat, 06 April 2008 - 12:29 PM.

[Jim856796]

It would be impossible to build a 500,000-square-foot convention centre on the base of the World Trade Centre. It is bad that we can't build the Morial convention centre expansion since demand for convention space is decreasing.

[djp4lsu]

News on the WTC project today. Looks like the project is being held up over issues with the lease proposals. But, the good news is that the project may be under contruction by the end of the year (but for some reason I bet that won't happen, the way things seem to go around here...).

The article also mentions renderings. I wonder what the building is going to look like after it's finished, if it's going to be any different?

[recoverydoc]

djp4lsu, on Jun 16 2008, 11:39 AM, said:

News on the WTC project today. Looks like the project is being held up over issues with the lease proposals. But, the good news is that the project may be under contruction by the end of the year (but for some reason I bet that won't happen, the way things seem to go around here...).

The article also mentions renderings. I wonder what the building is going to look like after it's finished, if it's going to be any different?

Here ya go.  Looks like all they're doing is putting in some larger windows.



Available at: http://www.fullspect...om/gallery2.htm

[tennis1400]

I hope thats ^^^^ a joke!

[djp4lsu]

Thanks for the pic, Doc. I'd say that's a pretty substantial improvement. The top could use a little work though.

[TSmith]

I like how they're keeping the exterior elevator shaft opening at the top. /sarcasm

They could do so much more with that building. But like all other proposals for this building, I'm sure this one will fall apart too.

[Jim856796]

The World Trade Centre gets a new facade for hotel use, though they forgot about the top of the building. Should New Orleand build a new World Trade Center?

[TSmith]

Jim856796, on Jun 19 2008, 07:10 AM, said:

The World Trade Centre gets a new facade for hotel use, though they forgot about the top of the building. Should New Orleand build a new World Trade Center?

Nah. The building has been pretty much empty for a long time now. World Trade Centers are pretty much a thing of the past, and occupancy levels in that building over the last 15 years or so support that assumption.

[richyb83]

What do yall think?? Great location between Canal Street & Poydras...is it best to do this??

City of New Orleans considers demolishing the World Trade Center
The City of New Orleans is entertaining a new approach in its 12-year effort to redevelop the World Trade Center: demolishing the building.

The Times-PicayuneThe city has concluded that the land beneath the iconic, 33-story building at the foot of Canal and Poydras streets is more valuable without the tower. It believes that the coveted site along the Mississippi River would be more attractive to developers if it were vacant. "I believe the World Trade Center site offers us the opportunity to create something at this nexus of two great boulevards that really is capable of inspiring everyone around us to greatness," said Sean Cummings, chief executive of the New Orleans Building Corp., which owns the building.

The possibility is a major shift in thinking for the city, which has been trying unsuccessfully since 1998 to develop the building with the World Trade Center organization, which has a lease on the building through 2019 and which has traditionally used the rent collected from other tenants to fund its trade efforts. Critics say previous development efforts have been needlessly complex.

Meanwhile, Egan said, little financing is available for commercial real estate projects nationally and there no demand for new hotel rooms, office suites or condominiums downtown. "If I gave you some of these buildings downtown, and said, 'They're yours for nothing,' what would you do with them?" he said.

Cummings isn't the only one who can envision something other than the trade tower at the foot of Canal Street.

A report released in January by the New Orleans Strategic Hospitality Task Force, which believes that the future of the tourism industry lies in developing the riverfront, depicts the "Tricentennial Plaza Welcome Center" and "Expanded Spanish Plaza Public Garden" in the spot where the World Trade Center building now sits.The task force that the map in the glossy report is meant to be illustrative of the potential along the riverfront and is not meant to say anything definitive about the future of the World Trade Center.

http://www.nola.com/..._considers.html

[JPKneworleans]

What a flop of a development, and you can lay most of the blame (especially the reason earlier attempts failed) right on the great government of the City of New Orleans.  The city government wanted too much of the pie, just like the state and city wanted too much out of the casino, which drove it into bankruptcy not once, but twice!

It sure will be nice to have fresh blood in city government.  Perhaps something will actually get done; contractors will be chosen for the quality of their work and the price of their bid, as opposed to whom they know; and real transparency, as opposed to back room deals, will become reality.

[American Dirt]

As of 2004-05 (when I took classes there), this building was still in generally good shape, and the rotating bar on top was successful even as the place seemed lifeless otherwise. It also has plenty of dedicated parking, even though the garage's design seemed particularly unsafe. It would be a shame if no one could devise a creative re-use of the building, even if--by most estimates--it is architecturally unspectacular. However, a building poised more or less at the terminus of both Canal and Poydras should be worthy of landmark status--New Orleans' equivalent of the Admiralty in St. Petersburg?

[Jim856796]

Why is demolition of the New Orleans World Trade Center even considered? If the World Trade Center is dead, it should open up a front door to the new orleans Downtown Area. If the WTC is left standing, we should have gone ahead with a hotel conversion anyway, even if demand for hotel space is declining. A valuable building like this cannot be left vacant forever. Which do you prefer, demolition or adaptive reuse?

Edited by Jim856796, 04 June 2010 - 09:20 AM.