But high-rise near Quarter put on hold

Thursday, July 27, 2006

By Bruce Eggler

The New Orleans City Planning Commission gave its endorsement Tuesday to developer Elie Khoury's plans for a 530-unit condominium development in Central City. But it postponed for a month a decision on a zoning change that developer Tom Bauer is seeking so he can build an even larger high-rise condo developmentnear the French Quarter.

The final decisions are up to the City Council. Khoury's project is in Councilwoman Stacy Head's district. Bauer's is in James Carter's district.

Bauer's project would encompass 900 condos, as many as 2,500 parking spaces, several stores and space for a museum he would lease to the city. The commission deferred a vote on the zoning change he needs until Aug. 22 and suggested he meet with more residents in Treme and the French Quarter to get their comments on his plans.

Khoury's $100 million project, expected to be known as Felicity Place or the Residences on Felicity, involves a 4.8-acre site on which Albertson's planned to build a supermarket until that grocery chain abandoned the New Orleans market a few years ago.

The site includes most of the block bounded by Felicity, Baronne, Euterpe and Carondelet streets and large parts of two adjoining blocks, including the back side of the block containing the former Houston 's restaurant. The entire site is vacant because all the buildings that once stood on it were demolished or moved in anticipation of the Albertson's construction.

Khoury, who also is converting the Krauss Department Store building on Canal Street to condominiums, said he expects the one- and two-bedroom Felicity Place condos, averaging 948 square feet, to sell for "mid-range" prices of $170,000 to $270,000.

The project would include buildings ranging from six to 12 stories, plus 632 parking spaces. Most of the units would ring the perimeter of each block, with the parking spaces hidden behind them. The 12-story building would be in the middle of the largest block.

The Planning Commission unanimously approved Khoury's requests to change the site's zoning from C-1A, general commercial, to RM-4, multiple-family residential, and to approve a conditional-use permit with a "residential planned community overlay." It agreed to waive almost 200 of the 817 off-street parking spaces required by the zoning law and to approve several other waivers.

No one spoke against Khoury's project at the commission's meeting. Architect Lawrence Adams of the Mathes Brierre firm said the developers had met with several community groups and found "a lot of enthusiasm" for the project.

By contrast, several people spoke against Bauer's proposal, although his actual construction plans were not before the commission, only his request to rezone a 15.7-acre tract stretching five blocks from Interstate 10 to Crozat Street , just across Basin Street from the Municipal Auditorium. The site includes a Winn-Dixie supermarket that Bauer built five years ago but that has been closed since Hurricane Katrina and is not expected to reopen, plus a large parking lot.

Bauer was seeking to change the site's zoning from LI, light-industrial, to C-2, general commercial, which would restrict the types of uses permitted but would allow new construction of unlimited height.

The Planning Commission's staff said C-2 would not provide enough control over what could be built and suggested changing the front part of the site, closest to the French Quarter, to C-1A, which would limit commercial buildings to 100 feet in height and residential buildings to 125 feet, and the rear portion to C-1, which has no height limit but sets other limits, such as on a building's floor-area ratio, or mass.

Bauer said he was ready to accept the staff's recommendation, and his architects and attorney said they looked forward to meeting with neighbors as Bauer develops more specific plans.

He has shown some neighbors preliminary conceptual plans that call for a $150 million development featuring two or three residential towers as tall as 361 feet, with condos selling for $220,000 to $600,000, but he has not submitted definite plans to the commission.

But some speakers said they oppose high-rise buildings in historic neighborhoods, others said they would prefer to see a grocery reopen at the site, and still others said they needed more information on Bauer's plans before they could take a position for or against them.

Noting that several speakers said they had only recently learned about Bauer's plans, Commissioner Lou Volz moved to postpone a vote for a month to let the developer meet with them. His motion passed, 5-1. Lester Johnson, who voted no, did not explain his vote, but earlier he had criticized what he called the "clandestine nature of this project."

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