"Along with"

 Seems like "along with" might be a bit of a stretch in this passage. 

A development agreement for the former Six Flags amusement park has been finalized, nearly a year after Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration chose Bayou Phoenix to take on the project.

The agreement will eventually allow the group led by businessman Troy Henry to access the site and begin pre-construction work. Details of the agreement were not immediately available, but Bayou Phoenix has proposed to build a warehouse on the 227-acre site, along with a water park, hotel, ball fields and other amenities.

If I had to guess at what's going to happen, at the very least I would assume the warehouse project is, "prior to" any remaining development which could be pending for a very long time.  

This doesn't yet say what, exactly has been agreed to.  Back in November, it was clear that Henry was seeking private control over a public asset beyond which was either legally or morally appropriate.  We'll see what he got soon, I guess. 

Update: Case in point, re: public investment going toward private profit.  Apparently the city is chucking in another 1 million dollars toward Henry's warehouse. 

Troy Henry's goal is full privatization

From the outside, this looks a lot like Henry's group is negotiating in bad faith with the explicit goal of getting complete control of the Jazzland property and avoid any accountability for their use of infrastructure created through a massive amount of public investment. 

Businessman Troy Henry, the public face of Bayou Phoenix, has claimed that NORA is demanding unreasonable approval power over tenants, contractors and other aspects of his future plans for the site. Henry, who reiterated those claims in a public meeting on Thursday, said Bayou Phoenix will never agree to those demands.

“No deal is better than a bad deal. And having one hand on the steering wheel trying to drive with somebody else having another is a bad deal, and a disaster waiting to happen,” Henry said at a meeting of the Industrial Development Board.

In one regard, he's right. No deal really is better than a bad deal. It's just that the deal he is angling for is one in which he fully privatizes a public project and collects the profit with no accountability or oversight. That deal would be the bad deal. 

The current plan the Henry is bucking against would have the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) take over nominal ownership of the property from the Industrial Development Board (IDB) and act as a landlord leasing it to Henry's development company.

NORA’s executive director, Brenda Breaux, said at a city budget hearing on Thursday that Bayou Phoenix is asking for a lease that's below the fair-market rate. She said NORA can live with that, but “there has to be an exchange for what the public benefits are, to protect the public’s interest.”

“It's not that (NORA) is intending to approve every tenant or whomever goes on that site, but there are some safeguards that the general public, the 390,000 citizens of New Orleans, would like to see,” Breaux said.

But now it looks like Henry prefers to own the land outright. His strategy for getting it in that case would be to clam up these negotiations and deal directly with the IDB who may be more willing (maybe a little desperate, even, at this point) to sell. 

With prospects for a master lease looking dim, exasperated IDB members on Thursday refused to consider extending an agreement with City Hall that gives the administration the right to lead redevelopment efforts. The agreement expires at the end of November, after which the IDB would seemingly be able to do as it pleases.

That's not an ideal outcome.  We talked about this in greater detail last month on the CBC podcast. You can find that in this post. The land now formerly known as Six Flags/Jazzland was purchased and developed through a large public investment of federal and state dollars. The public, through its elected representatives, should maintain control of its destiny and it should be used for the maximum benefit of the public. IDB can't just dump it to Troy Henry so he can turn a profit doing whatever the heck he wants.  The city's economic development director Jeff Schwartz agrees. 

“If that site is not redeveloped through a solicitation process, whether the existing one or a future one, there’s no guarantee that someone who buys the property on the private market has to do anything with it,” Schwartz said. “They could sit on it for another 10 years. They could turn it into a gas station.”

If that is allowed to happen simply because IDB is tired of dealing with this, it would be a monumental betrayal of the public trust.

The people's park vs Troy Henry

The Six Flags saga is once again in the news. You might say, it's been something of a roller coaster ride.

One year after Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Bayou Phoenix had won the right redevelop the former Six Flags amusement park site in New Orleans East, lease negotiations to give the group control over the site appear to be on shaky ground.

Actually the ground at the Six Flags site is the least shaky element in all of this.  At least that's one thing we learned watching the 2021 documentary Closed For Storm for the latest episode of CBC last week.  At least one person interviewed in the film says the park's foundation is structurally sound on strong piers and can be built on again.  (Of course this person may have been Tonya Pope so... grain of salt. But it seems correct.)

On the podcast, we specifically talked about why the park is of public interest and why the many attempts at redevelopment have necessarily been part of a public process. Not only does it affect the people who live in the surrounding area, not only does it matter to the well being of the city in general, but also because the initial investment... the one that built the strong foundation on those study piers... was massive amounts of public money.

We also talked about Troy Henry's background as a corporate leech and privatizing ideologue. And well, danged if that isn't the issue now.

Henry said he is still moving forward with pre-development work on the assumption that the project will move forward, but he would not say whether he believes NORA would eventually soften its stance.

"We are hoping they come back with something a little more amenable," Henry said. "But look, there are some fundamental things that we will not waver on. And if we can't control our own project, it's not our project."

But it isn't his project. This is a property and a facility that spiritually belongs to the people and in financial terms was literally built by the people. The people and their elected representatives should retain control over its destiny and benefit from its use.  Troy doesn't get to bully us into granting him the right to private profits from public investment without oversight. But that's what he's about now. It's what he's always been about.

Well it has been a roller coaster ride

The city's agreement with Troy Henry's development company to turn Six Flags into.. well... first into some warehouses and then maybe some other things later is, get this, behind schedule.

City officials said Tuesday that talks with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, which redevelops derelict properties, to take ownership have taken longer than expected. The Industrial Development Board has owned and maintained the site since 2009, but wants to dispose of it to save on maintenance costs exceeding $200,000 annually.

Seems like a straightforward sort of transfer between these governmental (or quasi-governmental) bodies.  But nothing is ever straightforward around here. What is going on?  Well, you know, real estate stuff, apparently. 

In a brief interview, Schwartz said agreements between the administration and the two development agencies are in final drafts, and said discussions are over “typical real estate terms.” He declined to go into detail.

No idea why they can't tell us more.  But just know that it's all very normal.

NORA Executive Director Brenda Breaux agreed the negotiations are over routine matters, but declined to provide details. 

 “These are normal agreements that require us to sit down and work with one another, and I’m expecting to be able to work through this,” Breaux said, adding that lease negotiations with Bayou Phoenix cannot proceed until the ownership agreement is complete.

Although maybe "normal" isn't the most reassuring state of affairs at this point. 

How big is the Six Flags site?

Over the years I've seen it reported differently a few times. Is it 140 acres or 220 acres or 227 acres or 224 acres or 150 acres?  Today the city's latest RFQ lists it as separate parcels of 162 and 65 acres.  Is that right?  What is happening? 

Under the latest request for qualifications, developers have from this Wednesday, Dec. 16, through to Feb. 9, 2021 to demonstrate their interest and ability to revitalize the area.

Schwartz said the city then hopes to winnow those bidders down to a short-list of potential master developers who will be asked to submit fully-fledged proposals.

He said the city is aiming to choose an exclusive developer, which can be a joint venture, and to have worked out a redevelopment plan by the end of June.

"We're going to do everything we can to stick to that with no more delays," he said.

The city is asking for proposals that include both the 162-acre main site where the abandoned amusement park is located as well as a nearly-adjacent 65-acre site located to the northeast, closer to Bayou Sauvage, between Interstate 10 and Michoud Boulevard and abutting two residential areas that contain several hundred houses.

Guess we'll find out soon enough.  This reclamation project has attracted some truly remarkable ideas from some fascinating people over the years.  Can't wait to see what is in the next exciting batch of presentations.

Well that's what we've got What do y'all got?

Step five ga-jillion and seventy two in a never-ending series of steps toward the time when we inevitably just dynamite the old Six Flags back into the swamp is, yep, more public input.

Come September, residents can sound off about the latest plan to transform the old Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans East, officials said this week.

City officials are considering a plan to turn the site into a place where people can ride ziplines or hike and learn about the shrinking Louisiana coast.

Those kinds of attractions, which have been considered part of the ecotourism or adventure tourism industries, have grown in popularity in the U.S. and globally in recent years.

That's after the latest consultant to plug the site into a random land use generator came back with ZIPLINES OF RESILIENCE. 

Prior to that it was Cyndi Nguyen's Indoor Water Park For Families Presented By Cyndi Nguyen.

Prior to that it was Tonya Pope and Edwin Edwards's Wax Museum

Prior to that it was Frank Scurlock's Zipline and Katrina Museum featuring John Young and a monorail, maybe?

Prior to that it was Scurlock with a different configuration of ziplines

Prior to that it was Pope with "dining and retail"

umm... here is a different consultant being called in

Prior to that Scurlock wanted to do one of those Noah's Ark amusement thingies.

Box retail!

This is sneakily my favorite episode. These guys went to jail after claiming to investors they had a contract to demolish the park for scrap metal.

More consultants!

We can go further back (all the way to Ed Blakely times, in fact) to find other proposals for movie studios, "advanced manufacturing" outlet malls, etc. Most of these presented by Scurlock, Pope, or Danny Rogers over and over again. But somehow we keep landing somewhere in the monorail/zipline zone. 

So, yeah, maybe everybody really is out of ideas. What have y'all got? 

Little Jazzland

A few months ago, the mayor kind of sort of talked about the possibility of demolishing the Six Flags site in East New Orleans. She said she was "running numbers" on it anyway.  Since then, the numbers may or may not have run back we don't have any info on that. What we do know is there was  a consultant's report that recommends we build a "resiliency" theme park there.

The assessment referenced by the mayor's office was commissioned by the New Orleans Business Alliance for the city and released in June. It envisions turning the site into a destination for learning about climate change, resiliency and water issues, and for family-friendly activities such as excursions to the nearby Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge or zip line courses. The analysis also points out the looming threat of coastal land loss that the region faces from the encroaching waters of the Gulf.

Zip line courses!  Look, I know that's no monorail but surely it has to be the next best thing. Good luck figuring out how to develop it, though. We only have the whole fourteen year history of stops, starts, and Scurlocks to show you how much fun that can be.

But enough about the old Jazzland. Say hello to the new.. Jazzland. 

The Cleveland company that recently scooped up two key jazz landmarks in the 400 block of South Rampart Street, a cradle of New Orleans’ most distinctive art form, has acquired a third: The Little Gem Saloon.

The GBX Group now owns the nearby Iroqouis Theater and the Karnofsky tailor shop – both of them important locations in Louis Armstrong’s young life, plus much of the rest of the block bounded by Loyola Avenue and Poydras, South Rampart and Perdido streets.

I'm so old I remember when the Jazz landmarks were going to be redeveloped by Opryland.  Whatever happened to that? It was going to be part of the downtown Disney experience.  Maybe GBX can give us something similar to that. Oh look Drew Brees is an investor.  He really knows how to pick a diamond in the rough so that's encouraging. 

Sparacia has said the hope of the investors – who include New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees – is to rebuild and restore the block in a way that reflects its unique history. For instance, the jazz landmarks could be opened as venues that feature jazz and other music, along the lines of the Little Gem, which was restored and reopened by the Bazan family beginning in 2012.

Sparacia has said GBX will probably also do some “infill” construction along the block, much of which is now occupied by surface parking lots. He said whatever is built will be in sync with the style and scale of the landmarks.

"Infill" construction "in the style of" the landmarks. Sounds like they really are going to build some DisneyNOLA type stuff.  I don't know if that's necessary but anything is better than empty parking lots.  Did they consider connecting the buildings with a zip line, though?

Six Flags: So Very Tired

IDB is meeting again with two of the same shoddily financed developers with dubious ideas for Six Flags it has been rejecting for years now. It looks like they're looking to sell it outright and wash their hands entirely.  Previously the mayor's office has stepped in to stop them from doing this. I wonder what's changed.


Update: So here's what happened at the meeting. IDB determined only one of the offers was even legitimate. (This is actually an improvement over what's happened in the past.) 

Three people made offers for the 224-acre property Tuesday -- $3.26 million from a group proposing a return of a Jazzland amusement park, $4.55 million from a developer pitching an amusement park and "city within a city," and $5.5 million from a developer's representative who didn't give details about his group's plans.

David Wolf, the board's attorney, said the board has only one legitimate offer for the property, the Jazzland $3.26 million bid, which was submitted in detailed and proper legal form. The board will also consider other written offers made in the correct way, he said.

Still not good enough for them to accept outright. They've told the Jazzland people no before. Seems like they really don't want to sell to them if they don't have to.  Might have something to do with their crass use of the recent tornadoes as a sales pitch.

TPC-NOLA Inc. has long been pursuing the shuttered park with a vision for bringing back Jazzland -- Six Flags' predecessor -- along with retail, movie production facilities and other uses in several phases. Tonya Pope, the group's leader, urged the board Tuesday to consider her $3.26 million offer, which is just above a recent $3.2 million appraisal of the property.

"As everyone knows, that whole area was devastated last week," Pope said, referring to a tornado that hit New Orleans East on Feb. 7. "I think it would really help the morale that this place that hasn't been repaired in over 11 years, that the neighbors have to see on a daily basis, that there is some hope that something's going to happen."

Regardless, they're apparently not selling to Scrulock's group under any circumstances. 

By the end of the meeting, Frank Scurlock, who wants to build an amusement park and "city within a city" called Transformation Village on the site, said because the board didn't accept his group's $4.55 million cash offer Tuesday, they are withdrawing their bid and will now focus on developing an adventure zip line and water park in Jefferson Parish.

Scurlock, whose family invented the bounce house and is known for skywriting over Jazz Fest, declined to identify the location in Jefferson Parish. "We believe time is of the essence," he said.

So far that guy has seemed the most like an obvious con artist of all of them.  If he's telling the truth about walking away, he's Jeff Parish's problem now.   Anyway, speaking of con artists walking away, what is this all about. 

As the board heard from the two groups making purchase offers as listed on the agenda, Henry Klein, an attorney who said he represents 30/90 Development, said his group wants to offer $5.5 million for the property, while giving no details who's involved in the group or their plans for the Six Flags site. Klein left the meeting while it was still ongoing.

IDB member Justin Augustine said people jumping out of the audience to make an offer is "not a professional process" and urged the board to use a more professional method to receive offers.

Actual photo of Klein as he walked out of the room:



Anyway, par for the course. Wait a few months and we'll see if they're all in the same room frowning at the same group of applicants again.
 

The money swamp

The Six Flags site is about to go underwater... figuratively this time.

IDB President Alan Philipson said he isn’t surprised at the appraised value, saying he was expecting something between $3 million and $5 million.

The value works out to about $18,500 an acre on the main property and $4,000 per acre on the secondary one, which IDB attorney David Wolf said is essentially unpermitted wetlands in need of mitigation before any development could happen. “It’s essentially 65 aces of marshland,” he said.

Annual operating expenses for the site -- grass cutting, insurance and security -- come to $210,000, with the bulk of that going to the $14,000 per month spent on providing round-the-clock security.

The board doesn’t really have the luxury of just hanging onto the property. Its $421,000 fund balance is due to dry up within two years at current cost levels, Philipson said.

“Personally, I hope that you all will find something to do with this before the money runs out,” he said to nods of agreement from some board members.

Could always call that Noah's Ark guy one more time. Do they still have his number or does he just show up every few weeks? 

Bid one dollar

The city and the Industrial Development Board still can't figure out how to unload their swampland.

The latest effort to redevelop the site of the abandoned Six Flags amusement park inched forward on Tuesday, as the public corporation that manages the site voted to hire an outside firm to appraise its value.

The McEnery Co. will gauge the site’s worth for a fee of $23,500. The firm’s bid was the lowest of four submitted to the 15-member Industrial Development Board.

A fifth appraiser, Thorns Consulting, was asked to vie for the job but decided against it, board members said. Some members in April wondered if that firm had a conflict of interest because its owner, Jimmie Thorns, is a former president of the development board.

The board has been mulling Six Flags’ future for years, but the discussions have intensified in recent months. The site has been the subject of one failed redevelopment deal after another since the park closed up shop after Hurricane Katrina.

Is it possible for the consultant to appraise the land at a value less than their fee?  Seems unlikely.  Meanwhile the cost of doing nothing is $10,000 a month which is what IDB says they're paying for maintenance and security. Still it looks like the city sees this as primarily a marketing problem rather than a just plain old shitty land problem.

Rebecca Conwell, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s senior adviser for economic development, said the city has tried repeatedly to help the development board with the site.

She said officials are in talks with at least three developers about the site. One, a Las Vegas developer whom she did not name, has urged the board to think about multiple uses for the sizable site, rather than just one attraction, she said. The city also has suggested the board engage real estate firms to help it market the site.

They'll come up with something nice, I'm sure.  Anything in the "marsh fire" category seems fitting.  

That's OK we've got airplanes

Today Lamar wrote about a bill before the Legislature that would allow the cash strapped state to subsidize "religious theme parks" like this one here. 

If signed into law, HB 771, a bill authored and proposed by Louisiana’s newest and most controversial state legislator, could provide tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer incentives to subsidize the construction of large-scale theme parks by tax-exempt churches and religious organizations.  It’s an outrageous proposal, and what’s even more outrageous, the legislator behind the effort is suing the State of Kentucky for millions of dollars after it pulled the plug on new earth creationist Ken Ham’s ostentatious and delusional Noah’s Ark theme park.

You might remember that a "Noah's Ark theme park" was among the proposed uses for the defunct Jazzland/Six Flags site in New Orleans last year.

The proposed name for the project is Transformation Village.

In addition to re-establishing the Theme Park  at the existing site, they are proposing the addition of a Water Park to be called Atlantis, a Movie Back Lot, a Jazzland Resort Hotel,  a Hospitality School, a Resource Center, a lifesize reproduction of Noah’s Ark and a International Shopping Center.

A release says “the project is a multi-year Vision with a Team of professionals including  Eric McQuiston, of Eric R. McQuiston, LLC, Craig Dennis and Frank Scurlock, of Scurlock Development Group, LLC.”

Scurlock is the founder and owner of Space Walk and Inflatable Zoo and been involved in Themed entertainment for more than 40 years with extensive World travels.

That proposal, along with one other, was rejected by a review panel who found it was not financially viable. Actually, they used stronger language than that. 

A member of the committee charged with reviewing the responses called the two proposals an “insult to the people of New Orleans” because they lack specific details about financing, developer qualifications and other matters.

“This is too big of a project, too massive of a development project not to have meat on the bones,” panel member Jeff Hebert said. The proposals offer “nothing of what we need to be able to review to have intelligent conversation,” he said.

Though no one else on the five-member panel was quite so outspoken, they seemed to share Hebert’s sentiments.

“I’m not looking for a pipe dream,” committee member Justin Augustine said. “I’m looking for viable projects that can go to this community.”

Scurlock seems to have taken it in stride, though.  He showed up again recently during Jazzfest when he paid a skywriter to grace the city with a week of positive, vaguely religious messages and smiley faces. 

Words like hope, faith, and coexist have been inspiring city dwellers and popping up all over social media.

The messages of love were the idea of local businessman Frank Scurlock. He hired Hammond to write the sky messages after being moved by all of the recent violence in the city and across the country.

Apparently that wasn't all he was moved by, though. He also used the publicity to launch a Gofundme site for his Noigiler (religion spelled backward) foundation.  Look what that's about.

This mission is fairly costly as it's not local. It cost approx $24000 for the period rain or shine.  The goal is to purchase the "Sky Magic" plane and keep it at Lakefront airport. If purchased the cost will drop considerably and be easy to maintain. At that point it's just smoke oil and gas,etc. We have had offers of free pilots and hangers which is a great start and blessing. We are based out of Flightline First FBO who has donated services.

This is the beginning leading up Transformation Village which is the rebirth of New Orleans East reserecting Jazzland and the addition of a water park and resort hotels to continue to make New Orleans a world class destination.

While the skywriting was going on a few weeks ago, some of us did ask what the angle was supposed to be.

Did the skywriter finally show us whatever the ad was supposed to be?

— skooks (@skooks) April 30, 2015

And some others of us got all bent out of shape about the cynicism or whatever.

@skooks It's super quaint, and it involves looking up at the sky, which inherently instills a sense of wonder. Like hot air balloons.

— davegladow (@davegladow) April 30, 2015

 Welp.

Anyway, so now I have to wonder if Scurlock has any relationship with this Ken Ham guy.  How big can the Ark-themed religious amusements community really be?

The do-overs are starting to pile up

Let's see, that's now the WTC site, Six Flags, the St. Roch Market, and, the airport are all back out for bid.

The New Orleans Aviation Board Monday voted to cancel the request for proposals related to the construction of a new terminal at Louis Armstrong International Airport.

That means that the entire selection process will have to start again from the beginning, including an advertising period to solicit new proposals.

The board encouraged joint ventures Parsons-Odebrecht and Hunt-Gibbs-Boh-Metro to submit new proposals. 

That's a lot of blockage. Maybe the city's unsuccessful bid for the 2018 Super Bowl has them convinced that "no" is the only respectable answer.  Or maybe they're wondering why nobody is sending them superfluous iPads. 

Or maybe they're just worried about being sued.

By starting from scratch, the board may have avoided a potentially lengthy court battle over the contract, because either joint venture would have been able to sue if the board had picked the other bidder.

Airport officials anticipate the request for proposals will be released again in the next few weeks, with the deadline for responses several weeks after that.

That would set back the project, which initially was expected to be completed by the end of April 2018, but could still leave enough time for the new terminal to be opened during the city’s tricentennial year.

It's not clear whether they're more worried about litigation arising from allegations of racial insensitivity on the part of one contractor or from former Deputy Mayor Cedric Grant's possible ethical conflict. Anyway they're starting over.

The good news there is, since there's no Super Bowl, nobody has to worry about flying too many people in during Tricentennial January.  Maybe it will be ready in time to receive bidders in town to present the next round of proposals for doing whatever is supposed to happen to Charity Hospital now.

Come back when you have a Noah's Monorail

This morning I likened one of the two Six Flags redevelopment proposals to an April Fool's joke.  (Not too keen on the other one either, for what it's worth.)  Turns out the committee wasn't very impressed either.

Alan Philipson, Industrial Development Board chairman who led the committee meeting, said the companies behind the proposals can return, if more firm finances are assembled to back their project.

"This committee has an obligation to the city, to the Industrial Development Board, to all of the citizens in this community, that we are not going to let ourselves sit down at a table and ink a deal that wet not comfortable the financial where with all is there," Philipson said. "Both of these proposals have come in here with absolutely no cash commitment."

We've found our Iconic structure and it is an ark

Saw @NoahMovie the other night at Cinepolis. Opens 3/28. Very intense! #thefloodiscoming pic.twitter.com/unqxZmzDku
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) March 24, 2014

What better way to match the intensity Brees speaks of than by plopping Noah's Ark down on our defunct amusement park.

Transformation Village LLC submitted a wide-ranging, seven-phase plan that starts with building a Jazzland park, although the plan has no clear source of funding or cost estimate. Future phases of the development would include a water park called "Atlantis," a dome-shaped shopping center arranged by global continents, a 450-foot replica of Noah's Ark that houses an orchestra studio, a movie production lot, a resort-hotel complex and a facility for students studying hospitality.

The only reason  I even sort of think this might not be an April Fools joke is that they went to the trouble of putting together a 49 page proposal. Although, it's pretty ridiculous itself.  Still, if it's intentional humor, it's of an exceptionally deadpan variety.