Pilgrim
Member
I'm surprised these business owners are so blatant about their plans. While the city government is driving people out of their homes because it is unsafe to live in New Orleans, and seizing personal property, these fellows are treating it like it is a minor inconvenience.
And the U.S. taxpayer is supposed to foot the bill for rebuilding their little tourist trap?
Pilgrim
The New York Times
September 10, 2005
New Orleans Executives Plan Revival
By GARY RIVLIN
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 9 - The New Orleans business establishment-in-exile has set up a beachhead in a government annex here, across the street from the state Capitol. From here, organizations like the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau have begun to plot the rebirth of the city.
In the cramped offices and hallways of this building, called the Capitol Annex, and continuing into the evening at bars and restaurants around Baton Rouge, New Orleans's business leaders and power brokers are concocting big plans, the most important being reopening the French Quarter within 90 days.
Also under discussion are plans to stage a scaled-down Mardi Gras at the end of February and to lobby for one of the 2008 presidential nominating conventions and perhaps the next available Super Bowl.
So far, those conversations have been taking place largely without the participation of one central player: the city. "They're still in emergency mode and not yet thinking strategically," said J. Stephen Perry, the chief executive of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We're thinking strategically."
The hurdles are formidable when so much of the city is still flooded and some are predicting it could be six months to a year before New Orleans is once again habitable. But the power brokers are not deterred.
For instance, F. Patrick Quinn III, who owns and operates 10 hotels in and around the French Quarter, has set up shop temporarily at the office of a friend and business associate in Baton Rouge so he can make frequent trips to his hotels, where guests - from journalists to employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - are now staying.
Emergency generators have allowed Mr. Quinn to provide limited power to his guests, and he has bused in workers from Texas and Florida. "We'll be up and running whenever the city is ready," Mr. Quinn said.
Mr. Perry said, "What people miss, watching the TV and all, is that the core of the city - the French Quarter, the warehouse district and the central business district - is dry." Power should be restored to the central city within three weeks, he said, and the water and sewer systems will be functional not long after that. Some parts of the city are already getting power.
And, of course, it is the French Quarter and nearby areas that draw virtually all the visitors to New Orleans, where tourism is king. The industry brings in some $7 billion to $8 billion a year, according to the convention bureau, with most of that spent in the French Quarter, the central business district and the warehouse district - precisely those areas that were least affected by the flooding.
"We're walking a fine line here," said Bill Hines, the managing partner at Jones Walker, a leading New Orleans-based corporate law firm that moved more than 100 of its lawyers into a satellite office here.
"People in Baton Rouge are looking at me funny, as if talking about bringing back music, or Mardi Gras, or the arts or football is frivolous when we're in the midst of this kind of human tragedy. But I think New Yorkers can relate," said Mr. Hines, a native of New Orleans.
"Just as it was important that Broadway not remain in the dark after Sept. 11, it's important that we start thinking about the future despite all the very depressing news around us."
Alden J. McDonald Jr., chairman of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, is more subdued than some of his business brethren. He is chief executive of the Liberty Bank and Trust Company, the third-largest black-owned bank in the United States. Mr. McDonald, who is working out of one of his bank's Baton Rouge branches, said his customer base, unlike those in the tourist business, was hit hard and at least half his branches were badly damaged by water.
Yet he, too, is starting to have some of the same conversation. "We're talking among ourselves, some banking officials, others here in town," he said. "The idea is we should get on the same page so that we're moving in the same direction. I suspect that over the next week to 10 days there'll be a lot more momentum behind these conversations."
Mr. McDonald said that on Monday he would be reopening several of his bank's branches in Jefferson Parish.
The business community, at first scattered throughout Louisiana and nearby states in the week after the storm, sorely needed a central command - and they fell into one, courtesy of the state's lieutenant governor, Mitchell J. Landrieu, the son of the former mayor, Moon Landrieu, and the brother of Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat who represents Louisiana in the United States Senate.
On the morning the hurricane first hit, Mr. Perry headed north and west to his mother's home in Baton Rouge, with no idea where he would work. Thinking he would be gone for two days at most, he brought only two dress shirts with him.
By that Thursday, Mr. Landrieu, whom Mr. Perry knew from his days as chief of staff to a former governor, granted him and his organization a small suite of offices down the hall from his own, on the top floor of a handsome, five-story, 1930's-era building. Others also took Mr. Landrieu up on his hospitality.
Now, when Mr. Perry needs to talk with his counterpart at the New Orleans hotel association, he walks downstairs to the third floor. The mayor's office of economic development is on the second floor. The director of Greater New Orleans Inc., a private development organization that represents many of the city's largest corporations, had called a first-floor conference room home base until moving on Friday to more spacious quarters.
On Thursday night, Mr. Perry dined at Gino's, a popular Italian restaurant here thick with well-connected lawyers and other movers and shakers who call New Orleans home.
Such conversations are only preliminary, to be sure. It is only in the last few days that most within the business establishment had an operating cellphone or working e-mail address. Besides, more immediate concerns distracted all but the most focused executives in the first week after the storm, like helping displaced workers find a home, to resettling their own families.
So it has been just in the last few days that the city's power brokers have started planning the comeback. Mr. Hines, the lawyer, had been busy helping his son, a student at Tulane University, apply to other colleges while helping his wife move to Houston, where his two daughters will attend Catholic school. It was not until midweek, he said, that he received an e-mail message making the rounds of top chief executives suggesting a meeting in either Baton Rouge or Dallas to "start talking about the future."
That meeting will take place this weekend in Dallas, where the mayor has temporarily set up base. Yesterday, Mr. Hines and other corporate leaders were making plans to attend.
"Things have really started to turn in the last 24 hours," said Mr. Hines, when reached by phone at his temporary offices on Thursday.
It is in Baton Rouge, a 90-minute drive from New Orleans, that the New Orleans operation of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, a Fortune 500 company, has set up temporary headquarters. Baton Rouge is where a large portion of New Orleans's bankers and lawyers have set up shop. And it is where the Marriott Corporation, which operated the most hotel rooms in New Orleans, has set up a 125-employee command center to handle everything from tracking down workers to assessing what needs to be done to reopen its 15 New Orleans-area properties as quickly as possible.
Fueling the buzz of optimism that has begun to course through Baton Rouge is the growing awareness that the French Quarter, which drives the New Orleans economy, survived with only moderate damage. Eight of Mr. Quinn's 10 properties are in very good shape, he said, and the 2 others suffered only modest damage.
"If the French Quarter had gone down, had it been destroyed from an infrastructure perspective, then the foundation for an economic recovery would have been taken out," he said. "Then the people of New Orleans who have gone through this diaspora almost would have no way to go home. There would have been no jobs."
Instead, Mr. Perry and others imagine that the French Quarter will be ready for tourists within 90 days, and the city's convention center will be ready to welcome conventiongoers within six months.
The French Quarter, he said, could prove "key to the city's rebirth; with jobs, there'll be money to start rebuilding houses and start rebuilding the communities."
Gordon Stevens owns three cafes in the French Quarter called Café Beignet. "I plan on opening up before the first of the year, absolutely," Mr. Stevens said. Mr. Stevens also operates a pair of riverboats that, for the time being, are docked in Baton Rouge.
Mr. Perry said he is hearing that same confidence from any number of business operators that cater to tourists.
"We will actually be up and functioning before the city is able to receive visitors again," he said. The X factor, Mr. Perry and others said, will be the status of the water and sewage systems, and more mundane matters like the availability of worker to do everything from drive cabs to tend bars.
Mark Drennan, the chief executive of Greater New Orleans Inc., and whose temporary office is in the Capitol Annex, is similarly optimistic. Mr. Drennan and his 20 staff members - at least those in a position to pitch in - have started working with the Louisiana Congressional delegation on the outlines of a business reorganization plan for the city.
"We're looking to raise money to hire the most talented consultants and urban planning people out there to help us rebuild," Mr. Drennan said.
And the U.S. taxpayer is supposed to foot the bill for rebuilding their little tourist trap?
Pilgrim
The New York Times
September 10, 2005
New Orleans Executives Plan Revival
By GARY RIVLIN
BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 9 - The New Orleans business establishment-in-exile has set up a beachhead in a government annex here, across the street from the state Capitol. From here, organizations like the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau have begun to plot the rebirth of the city.
In the cramped offices and hallways of this building, called the Capitol Annex, and continuing into the evening at bars and restaurants around Baton Rouge, New Orleans's business leaders and power brokers are concocting big plans, the most important being reopening the French Quarter within 90 days.
Also under discussion are plans to stage a scaled-down Mardi Gras at the end of February and to lobby for one of the 2008 presidential nominating conventions and perhaps the next available Super Bowl.
So far, those conversations have been taking place largely without the participation of one central player: the city. "They're still in emergency mode and not yet thinking strategically," said J. Stephen Perry, the chief executive of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We're thinking strategically."
The hurdles are formidable when so much of the city is still flooded and some are predicting it could be six months to a year before New Orleans is once again habitable. But the power brokers are not deterred.
For instance, F. Patrick Quinn III, who owns and operates 10 hotels in and around the French Quarter, has set up shop temporarily at the office of a friend and business associate in Baton Rouge so he can make frequent trips to his hotels, where guests - from journalists to employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - are now staying.
Emergency generators have allowed Mr. Quinn to provide limited power to his guests, and he has bused in workers from Texas and Florida. "We'll be up and running whenever the city is ready," Mr. Quinn said.
Mr. Perry said, "What people miss, watching the TV and all, is that the core of the city - the French Quarter, the warehouse district and the central business district - is dry." Power should be restored to the central city within three weeks, he said, and the water and sewer systems will be functional not long after that. Some parts of the city are already getting power.
And, of course, it is the French Quarter and nearby areas that draw virtually all the visitors to New Orleans, where tourism is king. The industry brings in some $7 billion to $8 billion a year, according to the convention bureau, with most of that spent in the French Quarter, the central business district and the warehouse district - precisely those areas that were least affected by the flooding.
"We're walking a fine line here," said Bill Hines, the managing partner at Jones Walker, a leading New Orleans-based corporate law firm that moved more than 100 of its lawyers into a satellite office here.
"People in Baton Rouge are looking at me funny, as if talking about bringing back music, or Mardi Gras, or the arts or football is frivolous when we're in the midst of this kind of human tragedy. But I think New Yorkers can relate," said Mr. Hines, a native of New Orleans.
"Just as it was important that Broadway not remain in the dark after Sept. 11, it's important that we start thinking about the future despite all the very depressing news around us."
Alden J. McDonald Jr., chairman of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, is more subdued than some of his business brethren. He is chief executive of the Liberty Bank and Trust Company, the third-largest black-owned bank in the United States. Mr. McDonald, who is working out of one of his bank's Baton Rouge branches, said his customer base, unlike those in the tourist business, was hit hard and at least half his branches were badly damaged by water.
Yet he, too, is starting to have some of the same conversation. "We're talking among ourselves, some banking officials, others here in town," he said. "The idea is we should get on the same page so that we're moving in the same direction. I suspect that over the next week to 10 days there'll be a lot more momentum behind these conversations."
Mr. McDonald said that on Monday he would be reopening several of his bank's branches in Jefferson Parish.
The business community, at first scattered throughout Louisiana and nearby states in the week after the storm, sorely needed a central command - and they fell into one, courtesy of the state's lieutenant governor, Mitchell J. Landrieu, the son of the former mayor, Moon Landrieu, and the brother of Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat who represents Louisiana in the United States Senate.
On the morning the hurricane first hit, Mr. Perry headed north and west to his mother's home in Baton Rouge, with no idea where he would work. Thinking he would be gone for two days at most, he brought only two dress shirts with him.
By that Thursday, Mr. Landrieu, whom Mr. Perry knew from his days as chief of staff to a former governor, granted him and his organization a small suite of offices down the hall from his own, on the top floor of a handsome, five-story, 1930's-era building. Others also took Mr. Landrieu up on his hospitality.
Now, when Mr. Perry needs to talk with his counterpart at the New Orleans hotel association, he walks downstairs to the third floor. The mayor's office of economic development is on the second floor. The director of Greater New Orleans Inc., a private development organization that represents many of the city's largest corporations, had called a first-floor conference room home base until moving on Friday to more spacious quarters.
On Thursday night, Mr. Perry dined at Gino's, a popular Italian restaurant here thick with well-connected lawyers and other movers and shakers who call New Orleans home.
Such conversations are only preliminary, to be sure. It is only in the last few days that most within the business establishment had an operating cellphone or working e-mail address. Besides, more immediate concerns distracted all but the most focused executives in the first week after the storm, like helping displaced workers find a home, to resettling their own families.
So it has been just in the last few days that the city's power brokers have started planning the comeback. Mr. Hines, the lawyer, had been busy helping his son, a student at Tulane University, apply to other colleges while helping his wife move to Houston, where his two daughters will attend Catholic school. It was not until midweek, he said, that he received an e-mail message making the rounds of top chief executives suggesting a meeting in either Baton Rouge or Dallas to "start talking about the future."
That meeting will take place this weekend in Dallas, where the mayor has temporarily set up base. Yesterday, Mr. Hines and other corporate leaders were making plans to attend.
"Things have really started to turn in the last 24 hours," said Mr. Hines, when reached by phone at his temporary offices on Thursday.
It is in Baton Rouge, a 90-minute drive from New Orleans, that the New Orleans operation of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, a Fortune 500 company, has set up temporary headquarters. Baton Rouge is where a large portion of New Orleans's bankers and lawyers have set up shop. And it is where the Marriott Corporation, which operated the most hotel rooms in New Orleans, has set up a 125-employee command center to handle everything from tracking down workers to assessing what needs to be done to reopen its 15 New Orleans-area properties as quickly as possible.
Fueling the buzz of optimism that has begun to course through Baton Rouge is the growing awareness that the French Quarter, which drives the New Orleans economy, survived with only moderate damage. Eight of Mr. Quinn's 10 properties are in very good shape, he said, and the 2 others suffered only modest damage.
"If the French Quarter had gone down, had it been destroyed from an infrastructure perspective, then the foundation for an economic recovery would have been taken out," he said. "Then the people of New Orleans who have gone through this diaspora almost would have no way to go home. There would have been no jobs."
Instead, Mr. Perry and others imagine that the French Quarter will be ready for tourists within 90 days, and the city's convention center will be ready to welcome conventiongoers within six months.
The French Quarter, he said, could prove "key to the city's rebirth; with jobs, there'll be money to start rebuilding houses and start rebuilding the communities."
Gordon Stevens owns three cafes in the French Quarter called Café Beignet. "I plan on opening up before the first of the year, absolutely," Mr. Stevens said. Mr. Stevens also operates a pair of riverboats that, for the time being, are docked in Baton Rouge.
Mr. Perry said he is hearing that same confidence from any number of business operators that cater to tourists.
"We will actually be up and functioning before the city is able to receive visitors again," he said. The X factor, Mr. Perry and others said, will be the status of the water and sewage systems, and more mundane matters like the availability of worker to do everything from drive cabs to tend bars.
Mark Drennan, the chief executive of Greater New Orleans Inc., and whose temporary office is in the Capitol Annex, is similarly optimistic. Mr. Drennan and his 20 staff members - at least those in a position to pitch in - have started working with the Louisiana Congressional delegation on the outlines of a business reorganization plan for the city.
"We're looking to raise money to hire the most talented consultants and urban planning people out there to help us rebuild," Mr. Drennan said.
