mikesaintfan

with the whole haiti thing going on i have tried to remind people tha N.O. is still suffering and is part of THIS country..im all for helping people in need but help your own first..I dont live in NOLA like most of you do..

there are still many suffering victims of KATRINA and i think the rest of the country forgets this..who here can give me an insider view of how rebuilding is going for when i speak my mind to people up here in the north east

Halo

Mike,

I live in New Orleans and totally agree with you. But having said that the devastation in Haiti is apocalyptic. They need first responders like nothing the world has seen before.

Right now, people are dying in Haiti, exponentially, as we type in this forum. This, like Katrina, has a LOT to do with humanity, more than nationality etc.

But you are correct, those of us who this country FINALLY came to help MUST never be forgotten. It's a HUGE mistake for New Orleans to be forgotten, or any of the other communities who lost life and were hit by flooding and disaster the past few years.

Saintswrath

You can usually get good updates on nola.com if you want to get insider info and always stay up to date on daily stuff regarding New Orleans..
Right now the Election and Saints overwhelm that site..
But recently 479 Million was won through a court battle between FEMA and the State regarding Charity hospital and a New VA Hospital..
FEMA wanted to initially give the city 140 Million to renovate or restore old charity, the state backed off that and said the damage is too deep to restore it and it will need to be replaced..
While i don't agree with the State issue with charity, i do agree the city "NEED" a New hospital to maintain and attract new doctors and scientist it'll also add to it's Biomedical sector that has already broken grown with a new building in the CBD.
The whole project will cost about 1.7 to 2.2 Billion when it's all finished, The state is now responsible for coming up with the other half, that will be the next issue, but so far it looks like they will go ahead with the plan to acquire the land they need which will sadly remove some historical homes, but it looks like it will do more good than harm with that clearing as they're is more Blight in that area than there is restored homes, more than half the people that lived in those nice historical homes left and never came back or just decided to not maintain it, tons of high weeds and shrubs taller than houses cover some of them and a lot of rodent infested homes give that area a dull dense, dead look..
the New Teaching hospital apparently will be extremely massive taking a bit of Midtown and downtown, as of right now there is no plans for charity hospital, but most citizens would like to have it kept in tact, restored because of how strong the building is, possibly converted into a public office building perhaps a city hall and office space, or just let private buyers bid on it.

Other projects are firing up as well like the Riverfront projects, plans to convert tons of Mississippi Riverfront land into parks, jogging paths, festival courts, nice cruise terminals, allow building of more Condo's, Amphitheater, BBall court, Skate board ramps, a Partial Jazz Park, etc..

Tom Benson also has some projects around the CBD he's getting involved with now that he has his new Benson Tower next to the superdome (The Dominion Tower) Now called "Benson Tower"..
Plans to dump an extra $10+ Mil to turning that entire area and around the superdome into a Sports complex complete with sports themed hotels.. a Permanent ESPNZone office stationed there *they are in talks now*, a large elevated and lower level tailgating area..
Here's a look at how it's suppose to look when it's done: (just a model)

The Architect and designer of the project is the same one that is responsible for L.A. Live (the New Project around Staple Center in Los Angeles.



While the New Orleans project will be a very very scaled down version of that, it'll have some various similarities.

you can read more on that here:
New Orleans Saints - New Orleans Saints Lease Extension

Other than that, City park is basically restored in full in some places better than ever, Musicians village is complete, Brad Pitts Make it right is doing great, 4 New Condo Projects in the warehouse district got the go ahead (We are crossing our fingers for the Trump tower to finally get the go ahead)..
And the Master plan for vast parts of the City is finally getting finalized and will have the final vote sometime in march..