With commercial properties being converted into residential apartments and condominiums in the downtown area of the DDD or New Orleans Downtown Development District, many are wondering whether there will be enough businesses in the same locations to sustain the residential growth.
It will be years before a new VA or a new LSU hospital will be built which will certainly bring many of the young and the mobile wanting to be near work.The gene therapy facility now appears to have a home on Canal Street.The conventions are bringing in tourists who in turn use up many of the downtown services.Most of the downtown commercial buildings are occupied, in part, due to damage from Katrina.
Yet, there is a certain class of entrepreneurs who have made every great city even greater, the “creative class”.If New Orleans is truly going to thrive as a city, we will need to attract more of that population to the downtown area.
Kurt Weigle, the President and CEO of the DDD discussed this particular group of people, their characteristics, their importance to the City of New Orleans and the type of incentives available to take New Orleans, downtown, through an upscale process.
