|
 |
This speech was about rallying our citizens and
businesses to share our excitement about the potential gold mine we were sitting on. We
have so many assets at our disposal - the French Quarter, an emerging Central Business
District, an airport that looks to Latin America and one of the busiest deep water ports
in the world. It is just a matter of investing the right attitude and working for a good
return. It was my task to convey this message to the investment leaders of the community. -Mayor Marc H. Morial New Orleans Open For
Business Ladies and gentlemen, members of the clergy, members of our City Council: Singleton, Glapion, Carter and Thomas, and you also, distinguished guests and friends, I want to personally thank all of you for coming to this important civic occasion today. It is a special day. Personally, I just want to note that today is my father's birthday, October 9. When we planned this event it was not in connection with that, but I just want to note that date for you today. We want to talk today about the historic task of rebuilding our city. Each of you here has made more than a verbal commitment to this tremendous undertaking. You have done something more. It would be easy for us to serve as cheerleaders, or even a cynical Greek chorus, whispering warnings of failure, doom and gloom. But you as a group have put your shoulders to the wheel. You have made investments - in money and in time. And you have invested in a strategy for the rejuvenation and rebuilding of our great city. Government and the private sector have worked together and we have bonded indeed. I say today that we have an emerging model for future generations of New Orleanians to follow. There are many areas of our economy that we can single out today. Our port and international trade have never been stronger. Oil and gas is returning. Tourism is booming. Indeed, this past summer was one of our best in 20 years. Our airport is not only setting records for passengers and cargo, but it is emerging from its cocoon and will become a beautiful butterfly - bigger, better and more vibrant. I would also like to respectfully direct your attention to a special success that has grown little by little, making progress in such a fashion that many of us have missed the awesome nature of this achievement. I am speaking of our downtown. When I talk about downtown, and indeed our city as a whole, I ask you to join me in three words, all beginning with the letter B. First, our downtown and our city is back. Our downtown and our city is bankable. And our downtown and our city beckons investors, local and foreign, to invest in our future. Our downtown is a profit center for our community and our businesses. It has become the ultimate in public/private partnerships. It is a business center, a residential center and a cultural center. Two years ago, the distinguished economist from the University of New Orleans, Tim Ryan, found that 122,000 people earn their living in downtown New Orleans. Some 70,000 of those commute from surrounding parishes. I say to you that if Tim Ryan updated his study, these figures would be even greater. I share with you today that there is no city of our size anywhere whose downtown represents such a large and dynamic share of a regional economy. Eat your heart out Dallas. Eat your heart our Houston, Memphis, Birmingham, Mobile, Little Rock and yes, even Atlanta. I suggest with pride that our downtown can only be compared to those found in cities far larger than ours. I am talking about Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Philadelphia. If you agree with me, I think we should applaud ourselves for such a worthy achievement. Now I ask another question. Does each of you have the information to rebuke the nay sayers who claim that growth is stagnant in downtown New Orleans? The answer is in the numbers. In the last five years, investments in downtown have totaled $575 million. There are also $870 million in investments far along in the planning. Much of it is tourism-related, but not all of it. The convention center means more customers for retail and commercial enterprises. This spawns new small businesses: tour guide businesses, event planners, florists, freight-handlers and others looking for downtown space to get closer to their market. We have seen new convenience stores, small restaurants and dry cleaners. I was struck recently when I learned of a $9 million dollar renovation plan for the Westin Hotel and a $14 million renovation and expansion project for the Canal Place Shopping Center. This is investment. It reflects not short-term hope or short-term enthusiasm, but long-term planning in the future of this city. If you combine the last five years with what is planned for the next three, you are talking about $1.5 billion in new investment in our downtown. It is unprecedented in this city's history, greater than the historic boom of the 1970s and 80s, and far outstripping anything happening in any city of comparable size in this nation. My friends, when it comes to our downtown, we are at the top of the list. Each and every one of you, as you meet investment, should have the 3-Bs on the tip of your tongue. Let me pose another question. Do you think Canal Street is dead? Do you think it is the only principal thoroughfare in the CBD? Our great Canal Street, the widest city street in the country, used to be the only major thoroughfare in New Orleans. That is not the case anymore because yes, Canal Street fell, but it is regaining its old luster. Because New Orleans has changed, Canal Street is just one of a number of major thoroughfares that offer development opportunities. Canal Street is retail trade, from Kraus to Saks, from Palace Cafe to the Riverwalk. Investment in retail development has been steady and profitable. Rubenstein Brothers is planning a $1.5 million renovation. Matassa's Market opened a block off of Canal Street to serve the French Quarter and tourists. The streetcar will come back to Canal Street with a $35 million investment. Now, Poydras Street is corporate, from Freeport to Shell to Entergy. Poydras Street is our Wall Street. We have seen investments in renovations. FNBC - $20 million, Entergy - $9 million, Pan American Life - $3.5 million, Whitney National Bank - $2.25 million, law offices, engineering firms, oil and gas corporations. That attracts supply stores, courier services and new restaurants. Envision Poydras Street as the power center of this great region; a place where businesses can locate at lower costs than comparable cities in the region. But It does not end there. Envision Convention Center Boulevard as a thoroughfare of trade; from the expansion of the convention center to the new headquarters for the dock board. This new developing corridor has unlimited potential. We have recently seen a new Wyndham Hotel and a Holiday Inn Select open there. Those two projects alone represent a combined investment of $16 million. There are plans to convert the World Trade Center to a hotel, to expand the Hilton Hotel, and bids are out for a new hotel at the Piazza d'Italia. Envision Convention Center Boulevard and Poydras Street in five years that will have new investment, new growth and new jobs valued at $150 million. This city is back. Our downtown is bankable. And I ask you to join me in beckoning investors far and wide to put money in this city. But it does not end there. Julia Street is the arc in contemporary urban living. In that context, residential investment in the Warehouse District and in the old CBD was a sound, profitable use of capital. The first 500 urban pioneers who moved into the Warehouse District after the 1984 World's Fair now represent 1,500 strong. When those first 500 people moved in, many thought they had lost their minds. Ten years later, they have opened the doors for people to see downtown as a place to work and live. New pioneers are finding other parts of the CBD good places to live. But it does not end there. Loyola Avenue is government. Tulane Avenue is medical with $95 million earmarked for the fast growing medical corridor which produces good jobs. Basin Street is jazz. Rampart Street is music, the city's lifeblood. Money will be invested by the Department of the Interior and the state of Louisiana to begin an effort to commemorate jazz here and to sponsor its ongoing development. That translates into a strong market for private investment in recording studios, jazz clubs, cultural tours and talent agencies. We can never forget that public investment spurs and induces private investment. And private investment can do the same to public investment. I should also point out that government expenditures, yes, have played an important roll in the development of our downtown. The federal government has invested $11 million on the renovation of the customs house, the Hale Boggs Federal Building and the Judge John Minor Wisdom Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals building. The state has joined with us in building Phase III of the convention center, the new arena, improvements to the port and improvements to the Mississippi River bridge totaling hundreds of millions. Work on the Earhart Expressway and the Tchoupitoulas Corridor still add another $100 million. Convention Center Boulevard, Henderson Street and additional improvements to port roadways amounts to another $9 million. The state will invest $85 million in our new downtown Super Arena to house, we hope, professional hockey and basketball and college and high school basketball. It gives us yet another facility to compete for the growing array of special events, sporting events and convention and tourism related events. Each of these investments enhances businesses. I want you to know that when business and government stand side by side, we can offer investors a sure and stable business environment. To summarize, our downtown, the downtown that we knew 35 years ago, before the Superdome, has forever changed. It is diverse, it is economically strong and it gives us the opportunity to invest in all of the corridors that define it. If we are to sustain this development, we must continue a shared commitment to economic inclusion and, yes, affirmative action - at the convention center or the new Super Arena or in the private sector. It will not stand unless we all work to insure that our new economic development is inclusive. We must begin to look towards the future and to understand that if we stand together and walk together, we can move forward together. We have certainly become, I think, a city where people are judged on their ability rather than their race, religion, national origin or gender. But we cannot slip in this issue. Twenty five years ago in Atlanta, there was great anxiety as that city began to change. But the people there convected a slogan that Atlanta was a city too busy to hate. What has occurred there over the last 25 years, has been unprecedented. And I would say to you that any business or political leader there will give great credit to economic inclusion. New Orleans cannot look back over the last 25 years and ask why we did not do the same. We must look forward to the next 25 years, to the next 50 years, because we will continue to build on the solid foundation we have created. Now there is a final question that I want to ask you, and that involves the economic health of the Vieux Carre, the French Quarter. Some suggest that downtown growth could compromise the other side of Canal Street. I beg to differ. I believe development in the CBD takes pressure off the French Quarter. The Vieux Carre must be polished as the jewel in the crown of this city. This French Quarter must be polished, cherished and protected. There is ample room for controlled growth in downtown New Orleans. One example is the transformation on Decatur, from a dark row of mostly unused warehouses into a vibrant district for entertainment and commerce. This transformation was directed by imaginative zoning. Now, the City Council is leading the way to relieving traffic from this fragile area. They are banning buses, and proposing a perimeter parking system. We have achieved a shared vision and a shared mission. The result is a bankable, stable and revitalized downtown, which has been the goal of the business community since the 1960s; a downtown that beckons investors, that beckons new urban residents; and a downtown that says we are open for business. We are open for business. Thank you very much and God bless. |
|
|
|
|
