Beach town of the future

I'm as puzzled by this WWL-TV report as anyone.

Now, one developer has plans that could change that serene feeling. On YouTube you can find an animation of a project that a company called Gulfwater Properties presented to the city and Algiers residents back in February. Shortly after Eyewitness News inquired with the company about the project, the video was taken down.

Instead of quiet views of the city skyline, the project would offer a restaurant, seminar room, snack bar, raised deck, swimming pool and even a beach.

Yeah, a beach on the river makes zero sense now. But remember this is about the future, or something.

Others, like Wayne Munster said change is inevitable. "I think it's the future. Future’s so big that you're not going to be able to stop it."

Maybe they mean the future when the actual Gulf Of Mexico is located in Algiers because that is coming. But who knows? Again, we really have no idea what this is about since we're reading a report about a deleted YouTube video and some man-on-the-street reactions to it and no other context.

We do know that around this time last year, there were plans in the works for that strip of Algiers riverfront.  Here's how that discussion was going.

Landrieu informed the Algiers residents that New Orleans is the hottest real estate market in the country and that waterfront property in every city is considered prime real estate. As for height restrictions he says you can either have long, skinny buildings along the river where "no one can see anything" or you can have tall buildings (I suppose suggesting that these tall, skinny buildings are somehow less of a hindrance to viewing the river).

He then went on to break the bad news to the Pointers (Algiers) about "what's not going to happen". The residents of the Point were not going to be able to say "I gots mine and nobody else can have theirs"...essentially confirming their worst fears about what probably "is going to happen" regarding development plans for the batture.

Interesting he would frame it that way. Right now the batture is green space that everyone can share. The Mayor's logic seems to be that the residents of Algiers Point are selfish for wanting to keep sharing it that way.

Beach or no beach, it sure sounds like some publicly shared space is fixing to go "back into commerce" one way or another.