AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Omni Hotels and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center are revising their $590 million hotel design after community backlash over plans to use a public park. The new design stacks ballrooms, increasing the tower’s height to 316 feet (29 stories) and the project’s cost by $20 million. While the removal of the park was generally well-received, some residents still question the building’s height, which exceeds current zoning regulations. If approved, the 1,000-room hotel would be New Orleans’ largest in decades, a project Governor Landry and business leaders believe will boost tourism and attract major conventions.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
Omni Hotels & Resorts and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center are preparing to unveil a new design for their $590 million hotel, retooled after pushback from Warehouse District residents over plans to take over a public park.
A rendering of the new design for the Omni Hotel on Convention Center Boulevard, which would be the largest hotel built in New Orleans since the 1970s if it goes through as planned. The new design would include a main tower rising to 316 feet, or about 29 stories, on the edge of the Warehouse District.
The changes come after a round of recent neighborhood outreach meetings conducted by Michael Smith, head of development at Dallas-based Omni’s parent company, TRT Holdings; JT Hannan, the Convention Center’s head of strategy; City Council member for the district Lesli Harris; and New Orleans developer Darryl Berger, a longtime partner with Omni who was assisting with community engagement in a private capacity and is not a partner in the venture, Smith said in a telephone interview Friday.
“The Omni team took neighborhood concerns about the park to heart and went back to their design team to envision a model that leaves the park alone,” said Jim Cook, CEO of the Convention Center. “To accomplish this they needed to stack the ballrooms, which means two active floors instead of one and adds to the height of the podium and tower.”
Both the height and cost of the project will rise as a result of the redesign. The tower would stand 33 feet taller—about 316 feet in total, or roughly 29 stories—while the cost estimate has increased by $20 million to about $590 million.
The Festival Park section of the 1984 World’s Fair was located on land now occupied by Mississippi River Heritage Park in New Orleans’ Warehouse District, photographed on March 29, 2019. (Photo by Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune). The Omni Convention Center hotel plan would incorporate the park in ways yet to be set out by developers.
Smith said the taller design and removal of the park were well-received in general. “There are some people that don’t like the height at any level, but I think that the general consensus amongst people we talked to was that going from 283 feet to 316 feet was an inconsequential impact,” he said.
City Council member Lesli Harris, whose district includes the hotel site, acknowledged at one of the outreach meetings that the “trade-off” for preserving the park was to allow additional height, according to two people who attended. Harris declined to comment.
Some residents welcomed the design change insofar as it removes the park from the development plans but continued to question the height of the building, which would be about five times what is currently allowed by zoning rules.
Sharon Toups, another Fibre Mills condo owner, said residents aren’t opposed to a hotel that complies with the district’s height restriction but she also has concerns about the obtrusiveness of a 29-story tower and how the added traffic will be handled.
City approval sought
If approved by the City Council, the 1,000-room hotel would be the largest built in New Orleans in nearly half a century. The Convention Center’s leaders have long argued that a connected “headquarters” hotel is essential for the city to compete with destinations like Austin, Nashville and Orlando for major conventions.
State support
Gov. Jeff Landry, who appointed board chair Russell Allen last year, has described the project as a “gamechanger” for the state’s tourism industry, while business and hospitality leaders say it will help attract major conventions and spur upgrades at older hotels.
The city of New Orleans did not respond to a request for comment.
