Buy a building for NOPD

New NOPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick captured headlines two weeks ago when she exclaimed at the City Council’s crime committee meeting, “The rats eating our marijuana; they’re all high.”

Her unsubtle implication that the police headquarters at Broad Street stood so dilapidated that the Council must not ignore the urgent need for a “temporary” replacement headquarters radiated across the chamber. While the superintendent did not specify a location, her testimony gave ammunition to those who have proposed spending $7 million to rent the 17th and 18th floors of the former Freeport-McMoran building.

Only after Kirkpatrick’s salacious remarks did the public learn that the rats had consumed cannabis at an evidence room at Magnolia Street – not the Broad Street headquarters – and that current plans mandated that NOPD would not even locate the future evidence room in the high-rise on Poydras St. across from the Superdome. That has led some to question, even in the current inflationary environment, if $7 million constitutes a sum handsome enough to pay most commercial mortgages? Why rent a “temporary” HQ when there are comparable spaces for purchase at a comparable price?

After all, the idea of renting the two floors has been posed as an interim measure until NOPD can secure a permanent headquarters. Advocates of the former Freeport-McMoran location used that defense to justify expected delays from long elevator rides, limited parking and other logistical concerns faced when placing the senior echelons of the Crescent City’s “peace forces” upon the upper floors of a skyscraper.

Admittedly, the expected rent costs would prove not so excessive for the CBD. At $16 per square foot, NOPD would pay a little more than half of what the state expends for suites in Benson Tower across the street. Still, when one observes the near empty four-to-five story buildings on Tulane Avenue, or the larger yet still serviceable properties throughout the greater downtown area, it’s not hard for the average taxpayer to conclude that a better office option may exist elsewhere.

And if the Freeport-McMoran building stands as the only answer, why not go large? The city currently spends $3 million on office space rentals, mostly in the old Amoco building. Why not consolidate all of those rents, and see if Orleans Parish can purchase the skyscraper? The property’s ownership changed hands from Frank Stewart to its current proprietors less than a year ago. They might be willing to look at a sale price whose mortgage amounts to not much more than $7 million, plus any other rents currently in the building.

Councilman Oliver Thomas has questioned the rush to rent the two floors across from the Superdome, and this newspaper’s editors grasp his point. Inner city commercial property prices have bottomed out of late. With $7 million in hand, perhaps the city should be looking at a purchase deal rather than a “temporary” rental for NOPD, as no council member truly knows just how ‘temporary’ the police department tenure might end up becoming?

This article originally published in the March 25, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.