Five teams of architects and planners have been chosen as finalists to transform a stretch of land along the riverfront

Monday, November 13, 2006

By Bruce Eggler

At a time when many New Orleanians' only concern with planning is wondering how it can help their flood-ravaged neighborhoods get back to something like normal, some of the world's best-known architects want to get involved in a visionary planning exercise along the city's riverfront.

Nine teams of architects and planners from New Orleans and cities around the world responded to a recent invitation to help plan the redevelopment of a 4.1-mile stretch of publicly owned land along the east bank riverfront.

Among them were at least two winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the highest international honor in the field, and architects from London , New York , Los Angeles , Toronto , Mexico City, Edinburgh and other cities.

Famous names such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Reiser + Umemoto, TEN Arquitectos and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz adorn the list of applicants to lead what Sean Cummings calls "reinventing the crescent" that gave the Crescent City its nickname.

Cummings, executive director of the New Orleans Building Corp., is overseeing the planning process for Mayor Ray Nagin's administration.

A committee of four city officials and three outsiders reviewed the nine responses to the city's request for qualifications and chose five teams as finalists. Those five have been asked to submit further information, including how much they would charge. After a round of interviews, the winning team is expected to be selected by Dec. 15.

The city then will sign a contract with the winner to propose basically what sorts of facilities should be built on wharves along the river between Jackson Avenue and Poland Avenue, where they should go and what they should look like.

'Redefining the riverfront'

Nagin hailed the quality of the responses the city got. "With this remarkable caliber of talent, we have for the first time in 150 years the chance to reconnect our city and people to the riverfront in new and exciting ways. I am proud of New Orleans and honored by the world design community's response," he said.

"We are hiring a professional planning team to create a bold and specific development plan capable of redefining the riverfront and transforming the city's edge into an internationally prominent waterfront," Cummings said.

The New Orleans Building Corp., an agency created to increase the city's revenue from some of its unused or underused properties, has set aside as much as $500,000 to pay for the planning process, which is expected to be finished within a year.

The foundation of the planning effort is a cooperative endeavor agreement recently agreed to by the city and the Port of New Orleans that spells out what east bank wharves the port will continue to need for maritime activities and what areas will be available for public, nonmaritime redevelopment.

Among other things, the agreement envisions "an uninterrupted and continuous linear green space or riverfront park" along the entire stretch between Jackson and Poland avenues, a "world-class performance venue" at the Louisa Street Wharf or another site, and a hotel and expanded cruise ship terminal at the Julia Street Wharf .

Other possibilities include more cruise ship terminals, hotels, parking garages, museums, an amphitheater, an opera house or a planetarium, according to the city-port document.

Rebirth on the batture

A major goal of the agreement is to expand the area of the riverfront, once devoted entirely to maritime uses, that is available for public use. City leaders have talked about "reclaiming the riverfront" since at least the 1970s, and the process already has resulted in French Quarter and Central Business District attractions such as the Moonwalk, Woldenberg Riverfront Park , the Aquarium of the Americas and the Riverwalk shopping mall.

Because the city's initial request was for qualifications, the respondents' proposals said little or nothing about what they might propose if they get the job.

But one wrote: " New Orleans is a world treasure -- a crucible of culture and creativity set in a liquid landscape. . . . Just as Chicago emerged from its flames, San Francisco from its earthquake and London from its bombing, so shall New Orleans , and what better locale for this rebirth than this majestic ribbon of fresh water and batture high ground that is the . . . crescent."

The city's selection committee comprised Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield, Director of Planning and Development Donna Addkison, Leslie Alley of the City Planning Commission, Cummings and three outsiders whose names Cummings said he wanted to keep confidential "to avoid lobbying by the firms. They are, however, recognized as leading planners on waterfronts." Two of the three live in New York , he said.

5 teams of finalists

Principal members of the five teams of finalists, with in most cases their areas of specialty and home bases, include:

-- Chan Krieger Sieniewicz (planning and urban design), Cambridge, Mass.; Hargreaves Associates (landscape architecture), Cambridge; TEN Arquitectos (architecture), New York; and Eskew + Dumez + Ripple (executive management and urban design), New Orleans.

-- EDAW (planning and landscape architecture), Alexandria , Va. ; Frank Gehry (architecture and urban design), Los Angeles ; and Marks Associates (landscape consultant), New Orleans .

-- Mathes Brierre Architects, New Orleans ; HOK (planning), 23 offices worldwide; and Studio Daniel Libeskind (architecture), New York .

-- Reiser + Umemoto (architecture), New York ; Olin Partnership (landscape architecture), Philadelphia ; Studio Matrixx (architecture), New Orleans ; and Alan Gordon (design consultant).

-- Zaha Hadid Architects, London; Trahan Architects, Baton Rouge; Billes Architecture, New Orleans; Bruce Mau Design, Toronto; and Gross Max Landscape Architects, Edinburgh.

More information on the finalists and some of their previous projects is available at www.neworiverfront.com.

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