New music museum for New Orleans’ River District still needs $160M. Will the state back it?

A new music museum for New Orleans that has been touted as a cultural centerpiece of the River District development received $2 million in state funding last month. But the project still faces an uphill struggle to secure the $160 million it needs to become a reality.

The Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience, as its backers call it, was one of two cultural focal points that were at the heart of the new $1 billion neighborhood when the River District consortium, led by local developer Louis Lauricella, won the master developer contract from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center just over three years ago.

The River District envisions building a brand new “entertainment-focused” neighborhood on about 39 acres of convention center-owned land over the next decade or so, as well as adjacent projects on privately-owned land. Their winning plan emphasized building more than 1,000 new residences as well as venues that would include the musical heritage space and Louisiana’s first civil rights museum.

The whole development requires hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, including a nearly $22 million property tax break for a new office building for Shell Oil, as well as reinvestment of approximately $120 million of sales tax that is forecast to be generated over the next 30 years to help pay for construction and development.

The River District earlier this month also secured key federal funding for its first 220 residential units. Project leaders have said most of the $95 million cost to build those units will come from public money.

While the River District consortium and convention center leaders have lobbied state and local officials directly for public backing for the residential subsidies, a $129 million Shell office tower and a $47 million new Topgolf entertainment facility, they have had little direct involvement in trying to get financial backing for the music and heritage or civil rights museums.

The River District declined to comment about the funding efforts for the museums.

Michael Sawaya, CEO and president of the convention center, was one of 15 business leaders, as well as local and state politicians, who signed letters to public officials voicing support for the music museum. But he declined to comment on its current status after meeting with museum backers last week.

The museum has failed in the last two state legislative sessions to secure the $75 million of state money it was seeking. The $2 million that was allocated in June was to help pay for “planning and development” costs, and lawmakers told the museum’s backers to scale back their request to no more than $45 million, according to Chris Beary, the developer who has been leading the project for the last four years.

Last year, the state also provided $2 million to open a civil rights “inaugural experience” exhibit in a 5,000 square foot space within the convention center. There was a promise from politicians at the time of a full-scale museum to come, and Michael McKnight, the deputy assistant secretary in the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, has drawn up a proposal for a $35 million capital outlay in next year’s budget to fund a 50,000 square foot museum, public documents show.

However, Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser, whose office includes oversight of the state’s 10 museums, including the civil rights “inaugural experience,” said there is no guarantee of any new funding for museums in the next legislative session amid a half-billion-dollar budget deficit.

“Next year money may be tight,” Nungesser said on Friday. “It depends on what they do to solve the budget shortfall; so we’ll have to see as we get closer,” he added.

Beary noted that money is always tight in the state budget. “So, it depends on what your priorities are,” he said. “We created the American music story in New Orleans and I think it’s our obligation to honor that story, not to mention the fact the museum would pay for itself.”

The museum’s backers have pointed to other national music museums that were initially supported by public funds and have since created substantial economic benefit for their cities.

The $92 million cost of the I.M. Pei-designed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which opened in 1995, has been more than paid back to that city, according to economic studies showing the venue generates about $200 million a year. MoPOP in Seattle and the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville are other examples of what a music museum could do for the River District and New Orleans, Beary argued.

Indeed, New Orleans had been one of the lead contenders to be home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the early 1990s, according to Bob Santelli, the music historian who is the curating consultant for the New Orleans project. He noted that a USA Today poll at the time picked Memphis and New Orleans as the public’s two favored sites, though it was Cleveland that put up the public money to get it built.

Santelli said New Orleans also had been a top contender to be the site of the Grammy Museum, which opened instead in Los Angeles in 2008.

“It just never got traction in Louisiana,” Santelli said.

If the River District music museum does secure the $45 million from the state, it could then raise another $60 million from revenue bonds secured on the sales taxes it is expected to generate over the next 30 years, Beary said. That would still leave about $20 million needed from federal sources, such as the Community Development Block Grant pool, and another $40 million from private sources.

Planning phase

Beary’s group has used the money raised so far, which includes $1 million from the city and another $1.5 million from private sources, to employ local architect firm Eskew Dumez Ripple to draw up conceptual plans, and to retain consultants like Santelli. They’ve also had an economic consultant, EconConsult, produce a report showing the museum would generate $150 million a year in economic benefit for the city.

Santelli argues that the cultural case for the museum is even more compelling than the financial one.

“Louisiana is one of the absolutely essential states in American music culture,” said Santelli, who has led 10 music museum projects around the country, including as founding executive director of the 32,000 square foot Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

“I want to get this thing built in the worst way,” he said. “It is the last great music museum still to be built.”

Beary said that while he was encouraged by support from state lawmakers for a revised funding plan, he doesn’t know if the development team for the music museum will be able to keep up momentum if it fails again next year.

“When they will lose their interest for this because the state doesn’t fund us, I just can’t say,” he said.