Just across the street from one of the success stories of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina -- the rebuilt Superdome -- stands one of the biggest reminders of the task ahead nearly 40 months after the storm.The former Dominion Tower, damaged by the August 2005 hurricane and little used since, has become a victim of another disaster -- the economic meltdown that's trashed the nation's financial infrastructure.
It's a familiar sight in camera shots of the New Orleans skyline taken for major sporting events. Mostly, commentators talk about the rebuilding that's going on around the area. The ex-Dominion building and the adjacent Hyatt hotel, also still vacant, are like the proverbial sore thumbs.
State officials, worried about the crash in oil prices that threatens state finances with a $1 billion-plus deficit and complications in tight bond markets, have abandoned a $45 million proposal to buy the building from its California owner and turn it into public offices and entertainment venues.
Hertz Investment Group now expects to go back to the private sector in search of tenants for the 600,000-square-foot structure. That process could take more than three years.
Occupancy rates in top-class downtown office buildings are at a reasonably high 91 percent. But with the city unable to attract a significant number of white-collar and office jobs since Katrina, the task could be a difficult one for Hertz.
Down the street, a banner hanging over a parking lot proclaims the intent of developer Donald Trump to build a new office tower. But that project, too, has seen little movement in recent months and it's unclear how the economic downturn ultimately will affect Trump's plan to build the mixed-use tower.
Sprinkled throughout the business district are high-rises and smaller office buildings that stand vacant, some seemingly untouched since Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans.
With two bowl games -- and national TV audiences -- coming to New Orleans in the next few weeks, hospitality leaders hope visitors will have a good time at the Superdome and not notice the empty neighbor. Mostly, they won't.
And it's possible that, when financial conditions improve, the Dominion building and the Superdome Commission, which had taken an option to buy it, could cross paths again.
The idea of turning at least portions of the structure into an entertainment complex could dovetail well with the nearby Superdome and the New Orleans Arena, where the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA play.
New Orleans has had previous successes in finding new uses for troubled or outmoded property. A prime example is the site of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition, built on an old riverfront wharf area, that planted the seeds for development of the massive Morial convention center and Warehouse District residential and entertainment district.
And in neighborhoods throughout New Orleans, post-Katrina pioneers and families glued to the traditions of areas they have called home for generations are at work rebuilding, and redefining the future.
In a brighter note for the downtown area, condos are sprouting in some former office buildings and the historic Fairmont hotel is undergoing renovation. The latter is expected to reopen in 2009 under new owners and with the name it carried for much of its existence, the Roosevelt.
Nearby, a $1 billion-plus plan to rebuild the Veterans Affairs hospital and a new state-run hospital also will bring change. The influx of medical professionals envisioned for the medical corridor could feed office buildings and residential conversions, and perhaps generate new retailing.
Such plans presumably would make the Hertz property more commercially attractive. Medical personnel would make ideal customers for the shops and restaurants that once operated in the building.
Toss in possibilities for clubs and other entertainment venues and the prospects brighten a bit more.
Like seemingly everything affected by Katrina, redevelopment of the former Dominion building will have to wait its time.
Still, when credit and real estate markets -- and the state's financial picture -- take a turn for the better, the Hertz property could prove to be a bargain for an investor with vision and patience.
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