Impact study delays approval of building
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
By Bruce Eggler

Plans for what would be Louisiana's tallest building, the 70-story Trump International Hotel & Tower, received a favorable reception Tuesday from the New Orleans City Planning Commission, but commissioners postponed a vote for two weeks so city officials can review a traffic impact analysis.

The $400 million, 1.6-million-square-foot tower would fill most of the largely vacant block bounded by Poydras, Camp, Natchez and Magazine streets. It would be 716 feet high, plus a 126-foot spire, and would contain 734 condominium and hotel units and 715 parking spaces.

New York real estate magnate Donald Trump announced on Aug. 25, 2005, that he would join a team of Florida developers in building the tower. Hurricane Katrina hit four days later, ravaging the city, but within two weeks Donald Trump Jr. said the developers would go ahead with the project.

Cliff Mowe, a Florida developer involved with the project, said he hopes to break ground by June or July, with construction expected to take 28 months, putting completion in late 2009.

Although financing has not been nailed down, "we will have no issues with financing," Mowe said. "There are several large lenders that want to do the deal," in part because of Trump's involvement, he said. "They are extremely excited about it."

There already has been limited marketing of the condos locally, and Mowe said a national marketing campaign will start in about three weeks.

'Landmark for the city'

No one spoke against the proposed tower at the Planning Commission's public hearing, and the planning staff said it thought the structure would "become a landmark for the city."

But in view of the significant impact such a project would have on traffic in the Central Business District, the commission said that both its staff and the Department of Public Works need time to review the traffic study the developers recently submitted.

The commission deferred a vote two weeks ago on the National World War II Museum's expansion plan, also because it lacked a traffic impact analysis. That report still has not been submitted, planners said Tuesday. They said that in the wake of Katrina, there is only one company in town able to prepare such reports, and its staff is swamped with work.

Edward Suffern, an attorney for the developers, said the Trump Tower project would create 500 construction jobs and nearly as many permanent operational jobs, and when complete would pay almost $12 million a year in property, sales and hotel taxes.

He said the Poydras site is the ideal place to build the city's new tallest building, outstripping One Shell Square and Place St. Charles, because the Poydras corridor is widely recognized as "the place to concentrate high-intensity developments."

Suffern said the Trump organization has built similar towers in cities such as Chicago, New York, Las Vegas and Miami and is a "first-class, first-rate" developer and operator.

Many condotel rooms

The building's first two floors would contain restaurants, retail space and a public arcade cutting through the building from Poydras to Natchez. Floors 3 through 15 would be used for parking. Vehicles would enter the garage from Camp and exit onto Magazine.

Because there would be no 13th floor, the building actually would have only 69 floors, but it would be numbered through 70.

Floors 18 through 32 would be a condo hotel, or "condotel," offering 435 units -- 29 to a floor -- that would be sold as condos but, when the owners agree, would be rented out on a nightly basis like regular hotel rooms. Owners of the condotel units would get a percentage of the room revenue. The hotel's lobby would be on floor 17.

Above the condotel would be 299 conventional condos. Floors 39 through 56 would have two-bedroom units, and floors 58 and above would have larger units. Pools, lounges and other amenities would be offered on floors 38 and 57.

Mowe said most of the condos are being offered for $575 to $675 a square foot, with many units selling for $390,000 to $500,000. Penthouse units on the topmost floors are going for $700 to $725 a square foot. Those units would be reached by private elevators that would bypass the hotel and smaller condo floors. Mowe said he expects the prices to rise as marketing proceeds.

Although there is no overall height limit at the site, construction of the tower would require several waivers to city zoning laws. One would give the developers a waiver of the maximum permitted floor-area ratio, a measure of a building's total mass, from the allowed 14.0 to 17.2. Another would let them build the portions of the building touching Camp and Magazine to a height of 85 feet, 35 feet higher than normally allowed.

A report by the Planning Commission's staff indicated it would recommend approval of the waivers, saying the project "will both complement and enhance the high-intensity urban environment in which it is proposed and will become a landmark for the city."

Some historic issues

The tower site is in the Picayune Place local historic district, and there are two three-story historic buildings in the block, both on Natchez Street. One would be incorporated into the project and the other would be maintained as it is.

Suffern said the staff of the city's Historic District Landmarks Commission is "comfortable" with the height and mass of the proposed tower but has requested some changes in the design of the lower floors.

Plans for a $220 million, 1,200-room hotel on the same Poydras Street site won Planning Commission approval in 2000, but developer Larry Sisung abandoned the project in early 2001, saying he had been unable to reach agreement with preservationists on the fate of the 19th century buildings in the block. Some observers expressed doubt at the time about Sisung's ability to line up financing for the project, but he said things never got to that point.

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Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3320.

The tower would fill most of the block bounded by Poydras, Camp, Natchez and Magazine streets. It would be 716 feet high, plus have a 126-foot spire. [2991147]