A little more than two years after purchasing the Bourbon Street nightclub of legendary New Orleans entertainer Chris Owens, Gayle Benson has finalized a deal with a new tenant for the property and a multimillion-dollar renovation is underway.
Benson, owner of the Saints and Pelicans, hasn’t yet announced who the new tenant is. But a spokesman for the Benson organization confirmed a lease has been signed, and that “we are very excited about it.”
Chris Owens dances on stage for her Father’s Day show at her Bourbon Street club in New Orleans on Sunday, June 20, 2021. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
“It is a single tenant that has agreed to invest millions in the property,” said Benson spokesperson Greg Bensel. “It will be a major renovation and in keeping with Mrs. Benson’s real estate strategy, this new tenant will bring the property back into commerce and impact economic development.”
Details of the project are still in development, according to Bensel, who said the organization hopes to have an announcement by the end of the year.
Interior demolition
Benson was a longtime friend of Owens and purchased the property at 500-510 Bourbon in August 2022, four months after Owens’ death at the age of 89. At the time, Benson said she planned to renovate and lease the building.
Gayle Benson smiles during a press conference announcing the Gayle and Tom Benson Disaster Relief Fund at the Greater New Orleans Foundation in New Orleans Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Staff photo by Matthew Perschall)
“I plan to do something that moves the French Quarter in a positive direction, which is something (Owens) always tried to do,” Benson said at the time.
The 20,000-square-foot building includes the former nightclub, three commercial spaces on the ground floor, Owens’ former two-story apartment, and several small residential units on the second and third floors that are now vacant.
Contractors began working on the building earlier this summer, according to documents filed to City Hall.
Father’s Day posters on a window outside Chris Owens Club on Tuesday, June 15, 2021. After a long coronavirus break, Owens will be back dancing at the club for Father’s Day. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
New Orleans-based Reeves Construction has secured permits to do interior demolition of the building’s existing mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems “prior to performing renovations under separate future permits,” a demolition permit says.
Contractors have also secured permits for construction dumpsters and to turn on the electricity in the building. But no plans or permits have been filed that indicate the identity of the new tenant or what they have planned.
A spokesman for Reeves declined to comment, as did Corporate Realty, the commercial real estate firm Benson owns.
French Quarter legend
Owens was a Bourbon Street legend for more than 50 years. The leggy, Latin-style dancer got her start in the French Quarter in 1956, when her husband, auto mogul Sol Owens, set her up as the headliner of the couple’s then-new French Quarter dance joint at the corner of Bourbon and St. Louis streets. She was 23.
Chris Owens poses in front of a cutout of herself in front of the Chris Owens’ Easter Parade house float in New Orleans, Saturday, April 3, 2021. Entertainer Chris Owens had a cocktail soiree with ticket holders and her entourage then traveled around Uptown to Commanders Palace and down St. Charles Ave. in a mule-drawn carriage. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Owens was unable to officially hold her annual Easter parade. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Throughout her life, she was quick to point out that she became the steamy strip’s brightest star while remaining “the only legitimate act that didn’t include taking all my clothes off,” as she put it in a 1974 interview with The Times-Picayune.
Until the COVID quarantine prevented public gatherings, Owens made regular appearances at her club, the French Quarter Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.