Everybody's gotta figure out their cut

They've spent the better part of this year trying to get Avondale "back into commerce" as a transshipment facility. I think the progress supposedly being reported here is that Jefferson Parish is giving them a PILOT. It's complicated by the fact that there are sooo many entities for the new operator to wring money out of.

But there is much more than tax negotiations to be resolved for the complex Avondale deal to close:

• Although the site is on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish, the Port of New Orleans is involved, in part because it sets tariffs on the Mississippi River in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes and because it owns the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad that crosses the river nearby on the Huey P. Long Bridge.
• Six Class I railroads serve the port, and one of them, Union Pacific, controls the Avondale rail yard.
• HRE New Orleans and Huntington Ingalls have not announced an agreement on price.

Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the West Jefferson Levee District and the parish government also have some interest in the matter.

The T-P story doesn't say much about how many jobs this might mean. The WVUE story it cites says 2,500 although there's little information as to what the conditions and quality of that work will be.

Flip This Shipyard

So from this we gather there's probably another buyer in the works for Avondale. But first it's in the hands of this glorified house flipping concern.

Assuming it moves forward with buying the property, though, Hilco's past track record may offer a glimpse of its possible plans, such as entering a commercial joint venture for the site with another company or perhaps the Port of New Orleans, which has floated the possibility of such a venture in the past.

Other options for Hilco could include trying to sell off Avondale's assets piece by piece or simply flipping the property to another buyer.

Hilco is no stranger to New Orleans. One of its business units, Hilco Real Estate, has worked with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to auction vacant structures and lots. In April, it held a two-day online auction for more than 100 such structures and vacant lots, generating more than $2.5 million.

It looks like it's going to end up in the Port's hands. This would jibe with the conventional wisdom stretching back to the beginning of the Public Belt story, anyway. But first we've got to get some financial intermediaries a chance to collect some rents.

So anyway, who bought Avondale?

There's so much excitement this week, it seems like this would have been a bigger deal otherwise.

Two years after it was put up for sale, the former Avondale shipyard has found a buyer, but few details have been released about the idle West Bank facility's future.

Huntington Ingalls Industries executives disclosed the development Aug. 3 in an earnings call with analysts. The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, where the defense giant is based, first reported the news Tuesday.

"We signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the sale of the property," Chris Kastner, Huntington Ingalls' chief financial officer, told analysts, according to the report. "While this is a positive step toward an eventual sale, a comprehensive due diligence process will now be initiated before the potential buyer is obligated to close."

Beci Brenton, a Huntington Ingalls spokeswoman, confirmed the agreement Wednesday but declined further comment.

Nobody is saying who the buyer is but it's obvious a lot of people know. The article points out some things a lot of us in the public already kind of know.  For example, there had been speculation that Avondale would end up as part of the deal between the City and the Port over the Public Belt Railroad. My understanding was that the occupants of the soon to be demolished Gov. Nicholls and Esplanade wharves might be relocated to Avondale. But then we read recently that they're moving to a facility on France Road.

On Thursday, the port's governing board approved the broad outlines of an arrangement that would terminate TCI's current lease in favor of a new deal for property the port will purchase for $10.5 million at 4325 France Road, along the Industrial Canal.

TCI's new lease will be for 20 years and will allow it to occupy the France Road property immediately. It will pay no rent for two years to cover relocation expenses.

That's pretty nice for the tennant that they're making it worth their trouble.  It's also nice they were able to arrange the shipyard purchase at such a steep discount. Really helps spread the wealth around a bit.

In recent months, Huntington Ingalls dropped the asking price for the Avondale property to $95 million from $125 million, Jerry Bologna, president and CEO of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission, said.

Speaking of which,  it also works out well for the France Road property owner that the Port is apparently able to pay almost twiced the assessed value.

The France Road property is now owned by Gulf Coast Shipyard Realty LLC, land records show. That company is owned by a group with ties to Shane Guidry, the chairman and CEO of Harvey Gulf International Marine, a marine transportation company.

The Orleans Parish Assessor's Office values the France Road property at more than $5.5 million.

That looks like a pretty sweet deal for Shane Guidry. Wait. Who is Shane Guidry, again?

During the last three years, Shane Guidry has become Louisiana’s most generous campaign contributor. In addition to serving as the CEO of Harvey Gulf, Guidry is also the special assistant to Attorney General Jeff Landry, where he collects a $12,000 annual salary and oversees the department’s criminal investigations unit. Landry was once Guidry’s personal lawyer.

Please enjoy that article, by the way. Guidry has a lot of friends besides Landry. Billy Nungesser, Cameron Henry, Newell Normand... pretty much all of your favorites and ours show up in there somewhere.  Certainly can't hurt your chances of getting in on the big deals like this.

Anyway, can't wait to find out who bought the shipyard.

"Public access"

News is starting to break this week about the future of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad and the Port of New Orleans.  Apparently the mayor is looking to kill a bunch of lingering birds with a single stone.

New Orleans officials are trying to orchestrate an elaborate swap that would turn over the city-owned Public Belt Railroad to the Port of New Orleans, and in turn would give the city the last two working wharves along the downriver end of the French Quarter, according to sources familiar with the talks.

The deal, if achieved, would accomplish two things: It would ease concerns among port officials about the future of the railroad, which is crucial to their operations, and which Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration has been considering privatizing.

And by giving the city control of the last bit of working riverfront between the Central Business District and Bywater, it could potentially open up uninterrupted access for the public to a two-mile stretch of the riverfront in the city's historic center.

Yeah it could open up access for the public or it could open up access to prime real estate for developers looking to drop in more hotels and/or luxry housing we do seem to enjoy building around here.  We'll see how that discussion develops if this deal goes through.

Another interesting facet of this story has the Port looking to acquire the Avondale Shipyard to make up for the loss of the wharves. There had been a rumor going around about a long term plan to relocate all port facilities away from the Orleans Parish riverfront to sites in St. Bernard Parish and at Avondale.  This development doesn't necessarily confirm that rumor but it does lend it a whiff of credibility.  At a recent Dock Board meeting, the Port's CEO did say there are "multiple scenarios" under discussion.

Anyway, remember this controversial Florida Avenue expansion project?

In addition to the project’s likely property seizures, displacement of residents and construction nuisances, Campbell said that if Florida Avenue is rebuilt, the Ninth Ward will be subject to exhaust, noise and vibrations from trucks. Hazardous cargo will be a threat.

Louisiana’s Department of Transportation and Development has big aims for the project, however, saying it can connect Florida Avenue from Elysian Fields Avenue to Paris Road in a reliable manner. The project can provide an optimal, north-south connection from Florida Avenue to St. Bernard Port. A roadway bridge would be built over the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, adjacent to the existing Florida Avenue Bridge. Area roads would be improved and newly aligned, DOTD has said.

The big picture goal of relocating the Port of New Orleans fits there as well. Just something to keep in mind.

The Nungesser Administration seems to be going well

It might be a good idea to get someone from IT to make sure Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser's spam filter is working. We can't keep falling for phishing schemes.

With the state facing an estimated $750 million shortfall in next year’s budget, Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser rolled up his sleeves to work on finding a solution of his own.

The result: an ambitious, potentially transformative arrangement that on paper proposes reviving Louisiana’s once dominant shipbuilding industry, creating more than 30,000 new jobs and investing nearly $1 billion into charitable endeavors involving education, health care and housing initiatives.

Too good to be true? That’s Gov. John Bel Edwards’ take.

Despite initiating a global correspondence and telling his letter’s recipients — who included U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Iraqi prime minister — that he was working at Edwards’ behest, Nungesser actually kept the newly elected Democratic governor in the dark, both men say.

Why keep the Governor in the dark on such a massive deal? Well, it looks like Nungesser (and State GOP Chairman Roger Villere) got roped into an elaborate scheme put on by a guy named Markos Fuson. I don't want to spoil the article for you entirely. But the synopsis goes like this. Fuson's company is a Delawre based corporation called Alexandros. It is described in the article as "a 'healing' company with a background in medical technology"  is supposed to have brokered a deal with the Iraqi government to import oil to Louisiana using ships built at the now shuttered Avondale shipyard to be refined in Lake Charles at a facility not currently configured to do this sort of refining.

Seems legit, right?  Ok, well, what if I also threw in this nugget. 

According to Alexandros’ proposal, Fuson had committed to investing 100 percent of his profits from the joint venture into Louisiana’s motion picture industry. He then pledged to invest his share of the film profits into a “to-be-established” charitable foundation that would offer education, health care and housing assistance to “minorities in Louisiana.”

What could go wrong?

Anyway here we are just a few months into Billy Nungesser's stint at Lieutenant Governor and already things are getting weird. We suspect there's plenty more where that came from. Get used to reading this phrase.

Nungesser also blamed his staff, whom he relies upon to vet his documents. In this case, the letters never should have reached his desk, he said.

Avondale still barely breathing

Remains open in 2014 but only slightly.

Since inheriting Avondale, Huntington Ingalls has struggled to reinvent it as a manufacturer catering to the booming oil and gas industry. In February, Huntington Ingalls announced that it was opening a new office in Houston as it worked to find a partner to capitalize on exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

That oil and gas Industrial Rebirth  is still happening, right?   Is it?

Some links for Sunday

• James Gill's column this morning is about ION Chariman Jay Lapeyre and his role in helping Bobby Jindal bring the SLFPA-E to heel.
  

Lapeyre is not just a big shot in Texas. He is most active in his home state of Louisiana where, for instance, he chairs the committee that nominates candidates for seats on the Flood Authority. The committee gives Gov. Bobby Jindal two to choose from when a member’s term expires, which (John) Barry’s has.

Barry was a certainty for reappointment until Jindal lost his rag over the lawsuit. None of the official reasons for the administration’s dudgeon make any sense, but the oil and gas industry has never lacked friends in high places. At Lapeyre’s urging, four members of the committee joined him in voting against Barry. That produced a 5-5 vote, and Barry was a goner.

“Whew,” the roomful of ION customers would exclaim, “that was a close one! Where would we be without Jay?”

Various civic and educational institutions are represented on the nominating committee, where Lapeyre’s sponsor is the Campaign for a Better Louisiana. Not that much better, though. A blatant conflict of interest is evidently still jake.



• Also from The Advocate,  a front page feature on the still very much in doubt future of Avondale shipyards. Avondale currently employs 1500 of its one time 5,000 strong workforce and is scheduled to close once the final order from its Navy contract runs out next month.

As various players scramble to put together a new strategy for the shipyard, the bulk of the 3,500 displaced workers are still in limbo.


Amid the slowdown, it’s hard to gauge what’s has become of the yard’s nearly 3,500 displaced workers.

Ault said he has had a hard time convincing people to drive or move the 120 miles to Pascagoula, where thousands of openings remain unfilled. He said the union has kept in touch with laid-off members, and many of them have stuck around. “Bringing back people would be a fairly rapid transition,” he said.

Bollinger — who employs about 3,000 people in Louisiana and whose firm typically has hundreds of openings, mostly at its repair facility in Amelia — said he expected to be deluged with resumes when Avondale’s closing was announced. But it didn’t happen, and his company has hired only about 50 former Avondale employees.

Neither going to Pascagoula nor working for Boysie Bollinger seems particularly appealing to these folks for some reason.

Google's plan to turn your every idea or public discussion about anything into an advertisement.

When the new ad policy goes live on Nov. 11, Google will be able to show what the company calls shared endorsements on Google sites and across the Web, on the more than two million sites in Google’s display advertising network, which are viewed by an estimated one billion people. If a user follows a bakery on Google Plus or gives an album four stars on the Google Play music service, for instance, that person’s name, photo and endorsement could show up in ads for that bakery or album. Such product endorsements, especially from friends and acquaintances, are a powerful lure to brands, replicating word-of-mouth marketing on a broad scale. Social advertising — which includes a wide range of ads, including endorsements — is a $9.5 billion business, according to eMarketer, accounting for 8 percent of digital ad spending.

Related: Here is Thomas Frank writing about the Silicon Valley (which we really should think of as the new Madison Avenue) obsession with monetizing "creativity" whatever that might be.

Those who urge us to “think different,” in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed. Creativity, they all tell us, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on it. And by dint of careful study and the hardest science — by, say, sliding a jazz pianist’s head into an MRI machine — we can crack the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power.

That was the ultimate lesson. That’s where the music, the theology, the physics and the ethereal water lilies were meant to direct us. Our correspondent could think of no books that tried to work the equation the other way around — holding up the invention of air conditioning or Velcro as a model for a jazz trumpeter trying to work out his solo.

And why was this worth noticing? Well, for one thing, because we’re talking about the literature of creativity, for Pete’s sake. If there is a non-fiction genre from which you have a right to expect clever prose and uncanny insight, it should be this one. So why is it so utterly consumed by formula and repetition?

Here's an amusing stunt by comedian Sam Hyde who passed himself off as a presenter at a TED show. For the uninitiated, TED is kind of a tent revival circuit of motivational talks for middle managers who worship the Creativity consensus thinking Frank describes. Hyde bullshits his way onstage and delivers... well.. this.

Bill Moyers on the House Republican rump:

Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen, they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control coverage to female employees; they demand Obama cave on the Keystone pipeline; they demand the watchdogs over corporate pollution be muzzled and the big bad regulators of Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The debt ceiling is next. They would have the government default on its obligations and responsibilities.

When the president refused to buckle to this extortion, they threw their tantrum. Like the die-hards of the racist South a century and a half ago, who would destroy the union before giving up their slaves, so would these people burn down the place, sink the ship.

From Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union speech:

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me - my money - was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

Yesterday, as the shutdown talks moved back to the Senate, Harry Reid kept up the hardball stance.

At an afternoon news conference, Reid said he wanted a shorter period for stopgap funding and a longer extension of the Treasury’s borrowing authority. Reid particularly wants to scale back deep automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, which were passed during the 2011 debt-ceiling showdown and will take effect every January for the next decade, unless Congress amends them.

Exclusive footage of Senate negotiations between Reid and McConnel

Speaking of stomping on the Tea Party, the Saints kickoff in New Engaland in about an hour and a half. This means, among other things, I'm going out for beer. Here, via B&G Review, is a moment of greatness for you to ponder in the meantime.

Things I don't get to go watch because of the early LSU kickoff

The "Save Our (Avondale) Shipyard" march tomorrow morning on Poydras will begin at 10:00 AM and move from the Superdome to the Boggs Building. Mark Moseley has more in his Lens column this week.

Update: See Gambit coverage of the event here.

The Rick Perry Jobs Program

Already taking root in Louisiana

Unger and community activists, union leaders, businesses and shipyard employees represent Save Our Shipyards (SOS), a campaign to keep the shipyard in the public eye. Billboards, flyers and posters hanging in nearby shops and restaurants read in large, bold letters, "Save Our Shipyards." "Today it's not a closed shipyard, but an open shipyard with people thinking about what comes next," Unger says.

This year the campaign that started in July 2010 turned to another community to keep the conversation going and raise Avondale's profile through word of mouth. More than 100 congregations ranging from Avondale and New Orleans to other parts of the state and representing all faiths will participate in a Pray for Avondale weekend Sept. 9-11. "We're treating [the congregations] as a member of the community," Unger says. "Each of these congregations is doing something inside the congregation, which means that the number of people reached is magnified tenfold, a hundredfold."

An SOS pledge letter addressed to congregations (and signed by several pastors, church presidents, interfaith organizations and an imam) reads, "The faith traditions that inform our deepest commitments remind us that we have a moral obligation to stand together with our brothers and sisters who work at Avondale in faith and solidarity. We invite you and your congregation to join the growing community working to save Avondale Shipyard."