New Orleans breaks ground on delayed Gentilly Resilience District project

18th December 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Drew Costley
Contributing Writer

(Veritenews.org) — New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, city officials and community members broke ground on a $31 million construction project that’s part of the Gentilly Resilience District, a $141 million stormwater infrastructure project that’s faced repeated delays.

Cantrell told the media that construction, which will be completed by M.R. Pittman, could begin any day now. John Lawson, a city spokesperson, said the city anticipates it will be complete by early 2025.

The groundbreaking kicks off work on a marquee project for the district: the Mirabeau Water Garden, a 25-acre empty lot of grass and concrete that the city wants to transform into a wetland with lagoons and walking paths. Once complete, the city says the water gardens will be able to clean and store millions of gallons of stormwater, address soil subsidence in the area and serve as a space for education and recreation.

It is one of the more well-known parts of the resilience district and was once called a “showcase project” by the city. The resilience district project itself has been called a model for climate adaptation that the rest of the world could learn from.

“It is no secret that our city has seen increasingly stronger storms, faster storms, and more recently even life-threatening heat waves, as well as prolonged drought that damaged our green spaces and contributed even to saltwater intrusion that threatened our drinking water,” Cantrell said at the groundbreaking. “Despite facing multiple challenges, the city of New Orleans remains at the forefront of climate change and… embracing climate adaptation.”

The city has taken its time to begin construction on large portions of the Gentilly Resilience District since securing $141 million in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2016, leading to skepticism and criticism from residents and even the architect of the project, David Waggoner.

According to a recent report by The Times-Picayune, HUD characterized the city as a “slow spender” in a recent report. The city has said that a 2019 cyberattack, the COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 contributed to delays in construction on the district.

Joe Threat, the city’s infrastructure czar, responded to criticism about the pace of progress on the Gentilly Resilience District at the groundbreaking.

“Anybody who’s sitting on the sidelines … saying that you’re not doing it fast enough, come and take my job for one day. Hey man, I guarantee you that you will change your mind,” Threat said.

District D city councilmember Eugene Green added that “it’s important not to rush a transformative and catalytic project project such as this.”

Still, although the deadline for spending the money allotted for the project has been pushed back to 2029 by President Joe Biden’s HUD, another administration could come in and reverse that decision.

Many of those in attendance were optimistic about the project getting underway, including Annie Ramagos, one of the sisters of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

“Most of all, you can see the money,” she said, referring to the sand, shovels and hardhats and a large construction vehicle present for the groundbreaking. “Talk is cheap but it helps when you can see the money.”

The land being used for the Mirabeau Water Garden is owned by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who are leasing the land to the city for $1 so long as the city uses it for the water garden. A convent on the land was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Despite being optimistic about the potential of the project, Jennifer Green, Eugene Green’s wife, resident of Gentilly and president of the Gentilly Terrace & Gardens Improvement Association, said she’ll keep an eye out for progress after the groundbreaking.

“I am going to be looking to see whether or not there’s some other dirt that gets tossed other than these ceremonial shovels,” she said.

This article originally published in the December 18, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.