Tower site to be next to CCC bridge ramp

Saturday, August 19, 2006

By Bruce Eggler

Staff writer

The New Orleans City Council has approved plans for a high-rise condominium tower next to the east bank Crescent City Connection approaches, despite objections from a few neighbors that the building will be drastically out of scale with the nearby Warehouse District.

The 6-0 vote on Thursday, with council President Oliver Thomas absent, came on the recommendation of Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose district includes the site.

The 24-story, 288-foot-high building, to be known as the Tracage, is to have 133 condo units and 207 parking spaces. It will be built at 1100 Annunciation St. , at the corner of John Churchill Chase Street .

Objections to the project centered on the height of the proposed tower, which opponents said would be inappropriate in a neighborhood where most buildings are from two to five stories high.

The site, just outside the historic part of the Warehouse District, is in a section where the city's zoning law imposes no height limit, so the height of the building's central tower was technically not an issue before the council. However, developers obtained waivers to other zoning provisions, including one for the height of the building's garage and another for the project's overall FAR, or floor-area ratio, a measure of the building's mass.

Another waiver granted by the council will allow the building to have 57 more parking spaces than the maximum 150 authorized by the zoning law. Proponents said the extra spaces will alleviate parking problems in the neighborhood. Opponents said that adding 133 condos will worsen traffic and parking congestion.

Opponents Blake Jones and Joshua Rubenstein said the lack of a height limit in the zoning for the blocks near the bridge approaches is a "glitch" or anomaly and the council should block a building that Jones said would be "an albatross around the neck of the Warehouse District."

But Gary Elkins, an attorney for the developers, said the site's zoning has been in place for 30 years and the lack of a height limit was intentional. He said a high-rise tower near the river would be "a hallmark of the post-Katrina 'higher and denser' concept" of development.

Head made clear she was not entirely happy with allowing a tall building near a low-rise historic district. But she said the developers had chosen the site because there was no height limit, and the city needs to have "consistent and predictable" zoning rules that developers can count on.

If the council turned down the plan Thursday, Head noted, the developers could revise their plans to eliminate the need for any waivers and build an even taller and "less attractive" building at the same site without needing to get council approval.

Head said she might ask the council to pass a moratorium imposing a temporary height limit in the neighborhood, but Jones said that would be too late to block the Tracage and also would be a financial windfall for its developers, ensuring that their building would have no nearby competitors.

Head did not ask the council to pass such a moratorium Thursday.

Much of the opposition to the project had come from residents of the low-rise Lengsfield Lofts condo building at 610 John Churchill Chase St. , next to the Tracage site.

Keith Perrin, president of the Lengsfield Lofts owners association, opposed the project at a City Planning Commission hearing in June, saying the new building would obstruct the views and block the light to several units in his building. He said then that it should be redesigned to bring it under 100 feet, the height limit in much of the Warehouse District.

But Perrin supported the Tracage project at the council this week. Even though "in a perfect world" he would still like to block it, he said, his group had come to an agreement with the developers on issues such as possible damage to the smaller building during construction.

Councilwoman Shelley Midura said she recognized that "no one is doing anything wrong" but was concerned that the result would be "one lone eyesore."

Leslie Alley, assistant director of the Planning Commission, which endorsed the project, said that if the neighborhood is rezoned, the goal would be to have "relational standards" that would help such a high-rise building to blend in with its low-rise neighbors.

The commission's staff recommended approval of the project, saying it would "bring a higher degree of residential activity in an area on the fringe of the Warehouse District and adjacent to the high-rise bridge," and would create needed post-Katrina housing in the part of the city that was least affected by the storm.

The project will require demolition of a warehouse on the site, but the staff of the Historic District Landmarks Commission said the warehouse has no architectural significance.

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

Shown is an artist's rendering of a planned new condominium tower in New Orleans . Objections to the project center on the height of the proposed structure, which opponents said would be inappropriate in a neighborhood where most buildings are from two to five stories high. [2196514]