Cedric Patin, a developer who owns about a dozen properties in New Orleans, claimed this week that his building at the corner of South Claiborne Avenue and Poydras Street was unfairly bulldozed by the city as part of their fast-track cleanup ahead of next February’s Super Bowl.
“I did not get due process,” Patin said on Thursday, as he stared through fencing at the space where his 6,000 square foot structure had stood the day before.
Cedric Patin’s building at 537 South Claiborne, which was demolished by the city on July 31, 2024.
But city officials said the building’s razing had nothing to do with the Super Bowl. Instead, the city finally ran out of patience after a back-and-forth with Patin for more than two years about the graffiti-covered, Hurricane Ida-damaged structure bore no fruit.
“He’s been given plenty of time to abate this property,” said Anthony Davis, the city’s code enforcement chief. He noted that there had been an administrative hearing on July 11, where Patin was found to be in violation of blight and public nuisance codes.
The dispute highlights tensions between some property owners and Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration ahead of Super Bowl LIX, as the city moves swiftly to address longtime blight and other infrastructure issues after years of neglect.
The NFL’s “Clean Zone” area near the stadium, which is exclusive during the Super Bowl to the NFL and its sponsors, is a priority for the city for cleanup. The NFL requires the host city to meet safety and cleanliness standards in advance of the event.
Patin’s building, which is a few hundred yards from Caesars Superdome, fell within that area, the developer pointed out.
Cedric Patin, a New Orleans businessman, owns about a dozen properties in New Orleans, including 537 South Claiborne Avenue, where the city demolished a building on July 31, 2024.
A blight dispute
Patin said he had been in lengthy talks with the city about the best way to abate damage that had been caused to the building by Hurricane Ida.
He said the building’s shoddy state was mostly due to thieves who punched holes in the roof as they stripped it of its wiring, and took air conditioning parts, lawnmowers and tools he used for his construction business.
Patin said he recently hired an architect and an engineering firm to assess how to bring the building up to code. But he was blindsided by the demolition order at the start of the week, which left him no time to ask a court for a temporary restraining order.
“They did this after just two days notice,” Patin said. “They could have done it a year ago, they could have done it three months from now. But it’s because it’s within the NFL ‘Clean Zone’,” he said.
But Davis denied that, saying his department’s role in cleanup ahead of the Super Bowl was almost entirely dealing with graffiti. He said the razing of Patin’s building was part of the city’s $10 million blight reduction program, launched last November, which he said isn’t linked to the Super Bowl.
“In his mind, there is nothing wrong with the building. But we showed empirical evidence,” Davis said. He acknowledged that Patin had hired an architect but he said that was “just a delaying tactic,” and said the property owner had failed multiple times to address the blight.
‘Bittersweet’ cleanup
Michael Hecht, the CEO of GNO Inc, the regional economic development agency, who has become the “pothole czar” for the Super Bowl after Gov. Jeff Landry put him in charge of expediting city infrastructure fixes, described the expedited cleanup effort as “bittersweet.”
“It’s making me ask the same question: Why does it take a once-in-a-decade event to get the basics right?” he said in an interview this week.
Patin said the demolition of the structure has cost him money. He had already been using the exterior of the building as a billboard for advertising, including one side devoted to his own work for the Son of a Saint nonprofit.
He said he had been in talks with representatives of the New Orleans Super Bowl Host Committee about using the property both for their parking requirements and for messaging and advertisement.
“If they were going to do something expedited, why don’t they fix that pothole and water leak I’ve been telling them about for the last five years?” Patin said, pointing to road damage and what appeared to be a broken water main in front of his property on Poydras Street.
He said he plans to sue the city over the bulldozed building.