One of New Orleans' most prominent developers is putting the finishing touches on the $100-million conversion of an abandoned 30-story office building into a 188-room hotel, 192 luxury apartments and a 365-space parking facility. The 53-year-old property, named 225 Baronne, is sited in the city's central business district. It is among several historic structures HRI Properties has converted to mixed-use developments. The intent is to "unlock their value," says Eddie Boettner, the firm's chief administrative officer. The project, he says, "saves 30 stories from the landfill."
To do so, the team negotiates challenges ranging from a tight site and extensive asbestos removal to resolving how to provide ingress and egress for parking. Because Baronne is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, team members also are charged with maintaining its historic fabric and qualifying it for the Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program—a key financial criterion for the project.