Seventh Ward Nightclub Development Likely to Move Forward
It’s an old trusim that everything in New Orleans comes down to race. Sadly, the cliche described reality last night at a Seventh Ward town hall meeting about developer Glen Amedee’s plan to build a complex of large live music venues on St. Bernard Avenue between North Claiborne Avenue and St. Claude Avenue.
Amedee, who now operates two of the larger music venues on the corridor of small music clubs and bars, wants to grow his empire with a new entertainment complex big enough to bring thousands of people to the rundown neighborhood south of the interstate. Plans include demolishing a vacant hardware store on the corner of St. Bernard and North Robertson Street to make way for a two-story building that would house three shops and a private club. A concert hall able to hold 2,000 and a ballroom for 500 to 800 people would rise next to the old hardware store, on an empty lot bought from the city for $50,000 at a 2008 public auction. (There were no other bidders for the land, though it had been used for years by local Mardi Gras Indian tribes and other community groups.) The complex, called Inspire, “will create job and restore an African-American business district devastated by the demolition of Claiborne Avenue for Interstate 10,” says Amedee, who opened the Wisdom Reception Hall and The Perfect Fit bar next door after Hurricane Katrina.
Here is before shot of the area:
Here are some images of its future, as rendered for Amedee by Billes Architecture
Race figured into nearly every comment made last night at the meeting, which was held at the Wisdom Reception Hall. (My first foray behind those imposing front columns. I recommend the highly tasty fried chicken.) One supporter, Fred Johnson, cheered the Amedees, who are African-American, for investing in the neighborhood after years of “Koreans, Chinese,Italians, Germans, Jews, Irish and everyone else coming into take the black dollar.”
Others in the crowd spoke of the need to create job opportunities for African-Americans in the community so people displaced by Hurricane Katrina will be able to return. While no one mentioned the demolition of the nearby Lafitte housing development, many of the comments spoke to the city’s failure to deliver the affordable housing so sorely needed in neighborhoods like the Treme that lost huge blocks of housing – ie the Lafitte housing development— to the wrecking ball.
It is impossible to extricate race from a discussion about economic development in a lower-income African-American community like the Treme, yet some critics of the project said the focus on race distracted from concerns about noise, parking and crime voiced by people who live in the neighborhood.
In the words of the Ed Buckner, the executive director of a Seventh Ward Cultural Center called The Porch and a longtime Seventh Ward resident who is African-American; “This is not about skin color. This is about doing what’s right for our community.”
Or as Joyce Montana, the wife of the late Mardi Gras Indian chief Tooty Montana, said: “This looks like a good project and I support local businesses in our community but we have to address the parking issue because the people who live here dont’ want to come home at night and find that there is no room on the streets for our cars.”
Johnson, who is the leader of Black Men of Labor social aid and pleasure club, will manage the project’s community development component. According to a brochure handed out last night, the Amedee-funded partnership will “provide resources and assistance to Mardi Gras Indian Tribes, second line groups, individuals and community groups keeping the culture alive” as well as work to promote homeownership, neighborhood improvement, education and small business development. Amedee offered no specific details about how funding or programs would be administered. A media job training program planned as a component of the project was described in similar vague language. The developer declined to say if any formal training institutions would be involved with the program, or how many people it would serve.
The development is awaiting final approval from the City Council. Already, the City Planning Commission approved the rezoning necessary to build large commercial buildings in the low-rise neighborhood of small businesses and one or two-story homes. The vote split the commission along racial lines with the five black members — Amedee, Carlos-Lawrence, Sandra Duckworth, Johnson and Chairman Ed Robinson — in favor, and the four white members — Kelly Brown, Tim Jackson, Poco Sloss and Lou Volz — opposed.
Just before the April vote, City planning staffers said in a recommendation against the rezoning that the change in land use “would be antithetical to the area’s existing neighborhood commercial and small-scale residential development pattern.” The staff said the change also would be a spot zone, giving preferential treatment to a few pieces of property. (One of the commissioners who voted in support of the project,
George Amedee, is a distant relative of the developers,according to the Times-Picayune )
Typically in land use issues, City Council members will follow the vote of the member whose district the development falls in. In awareness of the power he holds as a result of that voting tradition, District C Councilman James Carter attended last night’s meeting. He declined to comment directly on the project, saying only that he was “there to hear the community.” “This engagement is good to hear,” he said.
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