When it comes to appearances, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is not the most modern airport around.
But $755 million in modernization projects could help to change that.
It should come as good news to those travelers who complain that LANOIA falls short when compared with the look of other airports across the country.
The renovations are also expected to be good for the city’s reputation. Mary Beth Romig, spokewoman for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, in a Sunday Times-Picayune story called it the city’s front door.
“If the paint’s peeling and a latch is loose on your front door, that’s the first impression you’re giving to visitors,” she said.
Also in that story, LANOIA’s interim aviation director, Patricia Malone, had this to say: “In 2010 the traveling public will begin to see the exciting and fun part of the modernization program–extensive terminal renovations. Over the course of the next few years, we’ll see Armstrong International change dramatically into a facility our community can take great pride in.”•
One concern among Louisiana officials regarding the state’s film industry has been that after filming wraps up, the post-production work takes place elsewhere, like California.
But could we finally start seeing more post-production work stay in Louisiana?
That question came to mind after reading a story written today by CityBusiness staff writer Stephen Maloney.
Maloney writes about Maison Post, a post-production facility in Treme that is doing work on the action flick “The Mechanic,” which is directed by Simon West, who also directed 2001’s “Tomb Raider,” among other films.
“Now you’re seeing companies who were filming here deciding to do the post work here as well,” Maison Post agent George Hutchinson says in the story.
Here’s more from the story:
Chris Stelly, head of Louisiana’s film office, said the decision to edit “The Mechanic” in New Orleans represents a significant step forward for the local film economy.
“As we’ve steadily grown this industry, you’re able to do everything from pre-production to actual production,” Stelly said. “Now what we’re starting to see is growth of the actual post-production industry.”
Stelly also said post-production work creates high-paying, steady work that isn’t dependent on movies filmed locally, according to Maloney’s story.
“They would be able to take advantage of the 30 percent incentive on production expenditures in the state because that covers both production and post-production,” Stelly said. “If a feature film not shot here wants to post here, the law allows us to issue tax credits on post-production work alone as well.”
While studios like Maison Post are filling a need for post-production infrastructure in Louisiana, apparently the state still has a ways to go before it handle post-production of those huge films with lots of special effects. Here’s more from Maloney’s story:
Big-budget movies that rely on extensive special effects will still have to turn to Hollywood for detailed and highly technical post-production work, Stelly said, but for mid-sized movies like “The Mechanic,” New Orleans has become a perfect fit.•
It’s been more than four years since real estate mogul Donald Trump announced plans to build a high-rise residential project on Poydras Street.
The Big Easy is still waiting for The Donald’s project, Trump International Hotel & Tower New Orleans. The project apparently is moving forward; its Web site still mentions plans for the “magnificent tower.”
And, according to a story Wednesday on thedestinlog.com, “Planning is currently underway for a Trump Hotel and Tower in New Orleans, just a few hours from Destin.”
In February, an attorney for developers of the proposed Poydras Street project involving Trump said the project is on hold until the economy improves.•
Based on news reports, U.S. employers are scaling back on holiday parties and gifts for their employees this year, thanks to the economy.
According to a story the Las Vegas Sun published online today, one event planner in Vegas said that he normally has 80 company holiday parties booked by now. But this year, only 20 companies have booked parties, he said.
Here’s more from that story:
Fewer parties aren’t the only evidence of a grimmer holiday season.
Employees can expect fewer gifts this year from employers, too, according to American Express Open’s small-business monitor, which last month surveyed 516 companies with up to 100 employees.
Thirty-five percent of the businesses said they would give gifts to their employees, down from 46 percent last year, and 31 percent of companies said they would give year-end bonuses this year, compared with 44 percent last year.
Then there’s this headline from Wednesday’s edition of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: “Economy puts damper on holiday parties — again.”
According to that story:
While the worst of the recession may be past, many local employers are still not ready to bring out the champagne this holiday season.
Companies are generally being cautious in their spending, and are throwing more modest Christmas-time shindigs – if they’re having them at all.
It’s the second year that the economy has put a major damper on corporate holiday parties. An annual survey by outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that only 62 percent of companies are planning holiday parties this year, down from 77 percent last year, and 90 percent in 2007.
On The Wall Street Journal’s Web site Wednesday, blogger Michael Corkery wrote that the U.S.’s big banks “have killed their holiday parties this year amid the backlash against big banker bonuses and government bail outs.”
Here’s more:
While small businesses and individual Americans continue to suffer from the economic downturn, the banks have to at least restrain from gloating about their good fortune.
Bank of America says “it does not host or fund corporate wide, regional, line of business or staff holiday parties.”
At Goldman Sachs, there’s no holiday party this year nor was there was one last year. And there will be no Goldman sponsored birthday parties either, a spokesperson added.•
The Associated Press reported today that the Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a Colorado State University researcher $1.7 million to design and build a test facility to simulate wave damage on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
The award’s recipient, Chris Thornton, director of the university’s Engineering Research Center, said CSU was chosen because of its facilities and because its researchers have experience in studying dams, spillways, erosion and other topics, the AP story says.
It’s interesting that this contract is going to someone in Colorado rather than a researcher at a school in the New Orleans area, which has firsthand knowledge of Katrina’s wrath.•
In this week’s issue of CityBusiness, staff writer Richard A. Webster talked to local construction companies about former New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely’s infamous 2007 promise that there would be “cranes in the sky” by September of that year.
It’s been more than two years since that promise, and contractors say that just because the New Orleans skyline isn’t filled with cranes, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress.
In Rich’s story, Robert Boh, president of New Orleans-based Boh Bros. Construction, said he understands “people being frustrated with that statement. The image of cranes in the sky is most often associated with high-rise building construction, and there are very few of them around town. But there is other work going on that doesn’t involve tower cranes. It was an unfortunate way to say it.”
It makes me wonder what Blakely meant. Did he believe there would be lots of high-rise building construction? Or did he, as Boh seems to be suggesting, misuse the word cranes?•
The Louisiana oyster industry has something to smile about today.
Sen. Mary Landrieu announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has backed away from proposed regulations requiring that Gulf Coast oysters caught in warm months undergo treatments before they can be sold.
Critics say the rule would have devastated the Gulf Coast oyster industry.•
These days, a lot of people are interested in making their homes environmentally friendly or buying homes that are already that way.
Real estate agents are paying close attention to the green movement, too, even those in Louisiana.
CityBusiness staff writer Emilie Bahr reported today that some Louisiana real estate agents last month attended a three-day training program in Baton Rouge sponsored by the Louisiana Realtors Association and developed by the National Association of Realtors. Topics included adding energy-saving components to homes, how to help clients navigate tax credits available for making such improvements and how to market green homes.
Christine Keegan Westenberger, an agent who works out of ERA Stirling Properties’ Mandeville office, said in the story that some people want to know exactly how green a home is before they buy it.
“They want to have the last 12 electricity bills so they can see about what this house is going to cost them,” she said.
Westenberger, who went to the Baton Rouge training session last month, has received a green designation from NAR. As of early November, 3,000 Realtors nationally had received the designation, according to the story.
It looks like real estate agents are seeing green in green.•
The saga about the future of the shuttered Six Flags site in eastern New Orleans continues.
In the latest twist, the CEO of a company that lost a licensing agreement with Nickelodeon said he wants to buy the site from the city for $12.5 million.
“We’re basically wanting to just go ahead and buy the property from the city of New Orleans and stop fooling around,” Danny Rogers, of Southern Star Amusement, told CityBusiness reporter Stephen Maloney today. “We don’t want to play this game anymore. If they want the park redeveloped, we want them to sell us the land and everything that is on it.”
It’ll be interesting to see what the city, which is facing a roughly $68 million deficit — the second largest it’s ever faced — will do.•
The city’s inspector general, Ed Quatrevaux, says the Nagin administration used the wrong kind of contracting for the revitalization of the Municipal Auditorium.
Quatrevaux says the project should be awarded using a development contract, not a professional services contract, and that it is the kind of project the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority should be involved with.
“The method used to procure the project as a professional services contract is inappropriate,” the inspector general says in a letter to Nagin and City Council members.
But the Nagin administration says this is not a NORA project.
“NORA’s scope does not include the redevelopment of city owned properties,” says a statement from Nagin’s press office.
Click here for a CityBusiness story on the issue.•
Even though Ida was a tropical storm, even though it made landfall well east of New Orleans, the storm caused pretty heavy flooding in West End, cutting businesses and residents in that area off from the rest of the city.
CityBusiness staff writer Stephen Maloney today reported on the impact the flooding is having on businesses, such as Coconut Beach. He also shot some video of the flooding.•
While many people were watching the Saints beat the Carolina Panthers yesterday evening, my family and I were out and about, doing some shopping and going out for dinner.
Observation No. 1: Finding a parking space is easy when the Saints are playing.
At around 5 p.m., we had no trouble parking at Barnes & Noble in Metairie. Typically, I burn about half a tank of gas — yes, that’s an exaggeration — before a parking space opens up at B&N, especially on the weekends. Yesterday, though, there were lots of unoccupied spaces, some right next to the building. I’m guessing the B&N crowd is big on the Saints.
Observation No. 2: Restaurants are not crowded.
This might not be the case at all restaurants, but the one we went to last night in Kenner was nearly dead. The waitress even remarked about the lack of customers, saying it was unusual for a Sunday night, and she joked about needing to get a second job. It was great for us, though, because there was no wait for a table and the food came quickly. And, of course, we had a nice, nearby parking spot.
But the game was probably really good for sales at sports bars; we noticed packed parking lots at bars along Veterans Boulevard. At least somebody was cashing in.•
As Tropical Storm Ida heads toward the Gulf Coast, people in the New Orleans area are taking precautions. For example, the private school my nephew attends on the West Bank has canceled classes for today. Other schools, including some public ones, have also shut down.
We’re working as normal at CityBusiness today, but I’m wondering if any New Orleans area businesses have shut down for the storm.
I’m also wondering what parents who have to work today think about the school closings. Those parents have had to hire a sitter or perhaps take the day off of work to stay home with their children.
Parents, are the schools overreacting to Ida, which is now only a tropical storm?•
Here’s a news item I couldn’t help but blog about.
A man who made a board game ridiculing the government for its response to Hurricane Katrina has been charged with using money orders stolen in New Orleans the year the storm hit, according to news reports.
Here’s an excerpt:
Curtis B. Lyons, also known as Curtis Bordenave, was arrested Tuesday.
A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday. Lyons’ attorney had no comment.
Lyons is the creator of “Hurricane Katrina — The Game the Government Played.” The game gives players a government stipend and is meant to show the difficulty in navigating bureaucracy in the wake of a natural disaster.
I wonder if he’ll show up at the hearing with a get-out-of-jail-free card.•
As Louisiana officials wonder when the state will get its hands on more doses of the highly coveted swine flu vaccine, some Wall Street firms already have begun receiving doses.
At a legislative hearing Tuesday at the Louisiana State Capital, officials discussed the need for more doses of the vaccine in Louisiana, according to a wwl.com story.
“We’re really at the mercy of the distribution process at the federal level,” said Al Levine, the state’s health secretary, according to the story. “All I can tell people is to be patient. There is not enough supply yet.”
There have been at least 30 swine flu-related deaths in Louisiana.
In the meantime, some large New York employers, including Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, have gotten doses, according to a story today by The Associated Press. That has drawn criticism from people who say Wall Street firms should not have access to the vaccine before less wealthy Americans, the story says.
According to the AP story, union official John VanDeventer wrote on the Service Employees International Union Web site that “Wall Street banks have already taken so much from us. They’ve taken trillions of our tax dollars. They’ve taken away people’s homes who are struggling to pay the bills. But they should not be allowed to take away our health and well-being.”•
Here’s some alarming news to come out of the city’s ongoing budgeting process.
Mayor Nagin says the city has $5.2 million in its emergency fund, which is about $20 million short of what it needs to have on hand.
“If we do not have a $25 to $30 million fund balance set aside for emergencies, I don’t know what is going to happen,” Nagin said in a CityBusiness story.
Interestingly, in the meantime, Tropical Storm Ida is twirling off the coast of Nicaragua, and according to the National Hurricane Center it’s expected to be in the Gulf of Mexico at least by Tuesday, when it’s expected to still be a tropical storm.•
On Tuesday, CityBusiness held its 11th Women of the Year event, which recognizes the professional and community achievements of local women. Just before a luncheon began at the Sheraton hotel, I interviewed three of the honorees. Enjoy!
New Orleans City Council President Arnie Fielkow says he is disappointed in the hiring of a firm from outside of Louisiana to be program manager for the construction of a planned LSU hospital in New Orleans.
Last week, Jacobs Engineering Group announced that it has been selected as project manager for the construction of the new $1.2 billion, 424-bed, 1.6 million-square-foot teaching hospital.
Fielkow expressed his disappointment in a letter to the director of the state’s Office of Facility Planning and Control.•
A jury has found that Southern Electronics and Active Solutions should get $16.3 million in a civil case involving a business deal for the city’s crime cameras.
The jury found that former New Orleans tech chief Greg Meffert, computer company Dell and firms owned by city vendor Mark St. Pierre conspired to undercut the contract of Southern Electronics and Active Solutions.
Dell is liable for $12.8 million in damages on unfair trade and conspiracy claims, the jury found.
Meffert issued this statement today, apparently referring to The Times-Picayune when he talks about “a politically-motivated newspaper”:
Though I am relieved that the jury saw through some of this witch hunt, I’m disappointed that a majority of the jury found that I may have been liable for a small portion of the accusations, and we have a strong appeal underway. I am not giving up: the truth will win out and our significant advancements will be reinstated as the record of my service to the city I love.
This verdict and trial attest to the injustice of a politically-motivated newspaper partnering with profit-driven plaintiff lawyers. This unholy alliance destroyed my reputation and my ability to make a living for my family; clearly, the justice system can be manipulated in the name of money and politics.
The paper’s actions went beyond bad journalism in its efforts to deprive me of my civil rights. The newspaper obviously feels it is an authority higher than our legal system, even betraying the public trust, and I am forced to pursue legal recourse against them for intentional damage.
My family has suffered relentless, intentionally erroneous and mean-spirited attacks by the newspaper attempting to prejudice a jury. This indecent alliance aborted journalistic objectivity and misled our justice system.
Together as a family we will attempt to rebuild lives that have been irreparably damaged. I remain grateful and humbled by the steadfast love and support of my wife, family and many others.•
