Developer decides to build condo units at Audubon Building

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

By Greg Thomas

It was just one month before Hurricane Katrina pounded New Orleans that developers embarked on converting the 96-year-old Audubon office building on Canal Street into a 201-room Hilton French Quarter Hotel.

Now that conversion is, well, under conversion.

Developer RP Carbone Construction Co., a subsidiary of Carbone Properties LLC of Cleveland, stepped back after the storm and re-evaluated the market. The answer, according to Carbone Director of Development James Haas, was to convert the building into a 102-unit condominium complex rather than open a hotel and enter the still-jittery hospitality market.

When the developers were planning to create a hotel in the building, they got permission from the Historic District Landmarks Commission and other regulators to add a 10th floor for penthouses.

Haas said they are considering design changes, including adding basement parking, now that the project will involve condos.

The hotel was slated to cost $37 million to build, but the condo project's price tag has not been released.

Even though the storm caused minimal damage, the condo conversion is going to be expensive, said Audubon project architect Ashley Morton of Trapolin Architects. That's partly because the building's plumbing and heating and air-conditioning systems already had been readied to accommodate 200 hotel rooms.

Morton declined to specify how much that change alone would cost, other than to say more than several hundred thousand dollars.

Haas also was silent on the cost.

Some changes to the project may have to go before the City Council for approval, and Haas is hesitant to detail the deviations they might seek from the original design until negotiations with the council, the landmarks commission and the City Planning Commission are complete.

The building, at the corner of Burgundy and Canal streets, was completed in 1910. When Katrina hit, the building had been mostly gutted and interior construction on the hotel was under way.

One-bedroom condo units will average about 700 square feet, and two-bedroom units will range between 900 and 1,100 square feet. Penthouses will average 1,600 square feet. The condominiums will sell for $400 and $500 per square foot.

Pre-reservations will be accepted soon, said Patti Gracianette, an associate broker with Prudential Gardner Realtors Inc.

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Greg Thomas can be reached at gthomas@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-339