Proposed City Hall move to Armstrong Park under fire
21st June 2021 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
A proposed plan to move New Orleans’ City Hall from 1300 Perdido Street to the Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park prompted community protests last week.
FEMA has offered the city of New Orleans $38 million to renovate the Municipal Auditorium, and the money is set to expire if it is unused. The city would use the funds for the move, as well as spend another $171 million on the project.
However, the plans were met by objections from residents who feel they will ruin the historic Tremé neighborhood and raise the cost of living for residents. The New Orleans Culture Preservation Committee, in conjunction with the Greater Tremé Consortium and the Save Our Soul Coalition, led a march and rally on Thursday, June 17, protesting the proposed move.
The city placed barricades in front of the 1300 Perdido Street building in advance of the protests.
The protests included a brass band and marchers carrying signs with slogans like “Louis Says No!,” “No City Hall in Treme,” “Sacred Land,” “Go Back 2 LA Latoya” and “Respect the Voodoo.”
“We can’t possibly have a place that represents us if the community does not want us to be here,” said District C Councilwoman Kristin Palmer while addressing the rally.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell did not respond to The Louisiana Weekly’s requests for comment about the proposed City Hall move or the decision to barricade City Hall before the protests.
On June 15, Cantrell wrote on Twitter: “Congo Square will NOT be touched! We understand that Congo Square is a sacred space. The city will continue to work with the Cultural Community (sic) to elevate and highlight the significance of Congo Square. Treme will be protected in ways that we have yet to see or experience.”
Cantrell did not elaborate on the future ways in which Tremé would be protected.
At a press conference on June 15, New Orleans Communications Director Beau Tidwell said all work would be done within the current footprint of the Municipal Auditorium and no additional structures would be built or demolished. Tidwell’s comments came after early plans included the construction of a large parking garage.
The city’s website says maintaining the Perdido Street building will require increasing annual investments for renovations (including $1.9 million spent in 2019). The website said the property could be leased to create additional revenue for the city.
However, many locals are skeptical about these plans. Activist Mike Howells said he suspects the old City Hall will just be torn down to create more upscale apartments and condos in a downtown full of them. He said both the Perdido Street building and Armstrong Park were set aside by local and state governments as public property and should remain as such.
“We have a genuine interest in seeing that public property is used in a way that serves public needs,” Howell said. “None of us want to see City Hall privatized and turned into another luxury condo project.”
“Throughout our over three-hundred-year history here, Congo Square and the surrounding communities have represented ground zero in the African/Indigenous battles for freedom, humanity, dignity, rights, and equity…the space and the people have been under constant attack from lawmakers and private developers ever since,” wrote Ashe Cultural Arts Center Chief Equity Officer Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes in an Ashe newsletter.
On June 17, local musician and Mother-In-Law Lounge owner Kermit Ruffins posted his objections to the proposed move on Instagram, saying “City Hall should be moved to New Orleans East.” Ruffins added that the proposed move would give the Tremé neighborhood “more traffic than it can handle.”
Last Friday, Cantrell said that the administration no longer plans to move forward with the move to the Municipal Auditorium. Cantrell posted on Twitter, “Finally, we are open to other options for the relocation of City Hall and for the renovation of Municipal Auditorium. This is what I mean by this being a process. But they have to be viable options – just saying ‘No’ or opposing what has been proposed simply isn’t good enough.”
This article originally published in the June 21, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
