New Orleans spruces up for Super Bowl
By on January 11, 2013 at 7:08 PM, updated January 12, 2013 at 8:46 AM
As the clock ticks down to Super Bowl Sunday in February, New Orleans is rolling out a red carpet for the throngs destined to converge on the city. A roster of improvements will stretch from the baggage claim at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to waiting taxicabs, from along Interstate 10 into the heart of the city, from hotels and restaurants to scores of store fronts.
More than $1.2 billion in public and private investments have burnished a place better known for its laissez-faire attitude toward upkeep. “It’s like when you have company coming over,” said Mark Romig, president and CEO of the New Orleans Tourism and Marketing Corp. “You clean the house up.”
It’s a polishing that New Orleans has undergone before, most notably in anticipation of the 1984 world’s fair, Romig said. That event saw 7 million people converge on the city over the course of six months. Despite its woes – the $350 million exposition declared bankruptcy before it started – it had at least one lasting ancillary benefit, Romig said: the revitalization of the Central Business District, which back then had more than its share of abandoned blocks of warehouses and dark corners. Now, it’s host to a burgeoning community of residents, museums and art galleries.
Other events have spurred renovations, including the Republican National Convention in 1988, Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1987 and the 2002 Super Bowl, but Romig said those efforts paid more attention to window dressing than substantive improvements. This Super Bowl, officials said, is different: It's the first major event since the region suffered Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.
“You’re in the middle of seeing a great American city come basically back to life again,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
Repeat visitors will experience the changes as soon as they step off their airplanes. The airport, once a sleepy pit stop between Houston and Atlanta, is on the tail end of a $305 million upgrade. Its concourses last week smelled of fresh paint as crews worked on the finishing touches. A new color scheme of yellows, oranges and umbers is designed to convey a sense of warmth and richness, said architect Daniel Taylor, whose firm, Perez, led the design of much of the airport’s interior. Curved plates that vaguely resemble tortilla chips line the ceilings, invoking a slow-moving river or a traveling flock of birds, Taylor said.
New restaurants and stores populate the airport’s spaces, including a satellite of Dooky Chase’s, that iconic Treme restaurant owned by renowned chef Leah Chase. And Zatarain’s, a longstanding New Orleans food company, has opened its first-ever restaurant in the airport. A new rental car facility has risen out of the mud, and crews were busy pouring cement into a walkway that will lead from it to the airport next door. Inside, only Concourse A appeared to be in a major state of renovation last week, but Taylor was confident it would be finished in time for the Super Bowl.
New, strict regulations have been in effect since August to pressure New Orleans’ aging taxi fleet to modernize its vehicles. In order to pass regular inspections, all cabs must be equipped with GPS devices, security cameras and credit card machines, among other stipulations. Landrieu’s office said more than two-thirds of the fleet’s 1,600 cabs have complied so far.
The state Department of Transportation and Development has sunk $13.2 million in state and federal funds into more than a dozen projects throughout the city. The rusted façade of the rail bridge at the Orleans-Jefferson Parish border will get a fresh coat of paint. State-managed roads will be re-striped. Work crews have gone so far as to clear away overgrown brush along I-10.
Eight French Quarter streets got an overhaul. A federal, state and city partnership called Paths to Progress ground down and repaved the surfaces. Sidewalks were rebuilt, their curbs made wheelchair accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Workers are replacing the missing iconic blue tiles that bear each street’s name. The total cost will come in around budget at $11.3 million, Paths to Progress spokeswoman Alex Wommack said. The program actually spent a little less than expected, allowing construction of two more pedestrian safety islands along North Peters Street. That work is expected to be finished by the Feb. 3 game, Wommack said.
The city has had to sweat it out to get some projects in before kickoff. The new streetcar line running along Loyola Avenue between Canal Street and Union Passenger Terminal, a $45 million project, was originally scheduled to open last spring. Now, city officials expect to start shuttling passengers by Jan. 28, less than a week before the big game.
Justine Augustine, the Regional Transit Authority’s general manager, said crews working on the new line have run into 128 different obstructions -- an old ice cellar leaking ammonia, an enormous petrified Cyprus tree – but said he has no doubts about finishing before deadline.
Ditto for the $52 million worth of renovations going on at the Great Hall at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, said spokesman Tim Hemphill. The hall’s 60,300 square feet will be set up as retail space for the NFL, opening on Jan. 25.
Staff writer Andrew Vanacore contributed to this story.
© NOLA.com. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment