After threatening action on the Plaza Tower for years, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration has won approval of a multimillion dollar plan that would first secure and then potentially demolish the blighted New Orleans skyscraper.
During a Governmental Affairs Committee meeting on Wednesday, City Council members voted 3-0 to approve a contract with Renascent Inc., an Indianapolis-based demolition firm. If the contract is approved by the full council, as expected, Renascent would conduct a floor-by-floor assessment of the building and undertake a $2.75 million plan to make the half-century-old structure safe.
Renascent would also be in position to demolish it, at an estimated cost of $28 million, if so ordered, according to Austin Wilty, a city attorney who outlined the contract to the council on behalf of the Cantrell administration.
Committee chairperson JP Morrell, in teeing up the vote on the two-part plan, said it was something that “the people of New Orleans have been waiting for for years.”
City Council member JP Morrell, photographed Oct. 11, 2023.
“It is one of those things where everybody is in agreement that this is necessary,” Morrell added. “If there was, like, an FBI Most Wanted list of blighted structures in the city of New Orleans, this would be number one.”
However, the owner of the building slammed the decision and said he would seek legal advice to determine whether the city was overstepping its authority.
Randy Waesche, the executor of the estate of the late Joe Jaeger, the developer who owned the building for a decade before his death in a car accident last June, said he had signed a tentative agreement on Wednesday with a potential buyer of Plaza Tower.
“This is totally premature,” Waesche said of the committee’s move. “I’m very disappointed that the city has taken this measure. We’ve made efforts to wrap the building and already had our people look at it from a structural point of view and we’ve had ongoing discussions with the city” about additional measures to make it safe.
“I will be getting advice in globo — engineering, legal and political advice — and plan to continue to work cooperatively with the city to resolve the situation,” Waesche said.
A long decline
Plaza Tower, which was one of the city’s first skyscrapers when it was completed in 1969, has been deteriorating since it was abandoned by its last tenants in 2002 following chronic problems with mold, faulty elevators and other deficiencies.
A series of plans to revive the tower came and went over the years. Jaeger, who purchased it in 2014, at one point was close to a deal to convert the property into a UMusic Hotel — a chain owned by the Universal Music Group — but that fizzled when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Before he died, Jaeger had been trying to find a buyer to take the property off his hands.
Council member Lesli Harris, whose District B includes the Plaza Tower, said time had run out for the building, which has been cited for dozens of code violations over the years.
An emergency worker’s glove sits on the ground outside of the Plaza Tower in Central Business District after New Orleans police say a man fell to his death from the vacant, 45-story building on Monday, April 24, 2023.
“We’ve done the carrot thing, now it’s time for a stick to get the ownership to do something with this building,” Harris said. “If they’re not going to do anything with it, then I think it absolutely has to be demolished.”
She noted that despite measures by the owner to put up additional safety fencing and a metallic “hairnet” covering the top floors, debris continued to fall off the building as recently as last month.
That has required streets near the building to be closed to the public yet again.
The netting was put on the building three years ago after falling debris injured a passing cyclist. Fencing was added when someone trespassing in the building fell to their death.
New Orleans firefighters mop up after a two-alarm fire Sunday, April 23, 2023, at the vacant Plaza Tower building at 1001 Howard Avenue in New Orleans. The fire was contained to the second floor of the structure structure. (Photo by Scott Threlkeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The final decision on the contract must go to a full council vote, but it has the key votes of the council president and the site’s district representative, which typically means it would pass unopposed.
In providing details of the proposed contract, which resulted from a request for proposals issued in Dec. 2023, Wilty said the city would move to make the building’s owner liable for the costs of mitigation and demolition.
The plan is to undertake the assessment and safety mitigation before the Super Bowl arrives in New Orleans in February. Officials are planning to drape the building in artwork before the game as well.
Waesche said a confidentiality agreement prevented him from providing details of the potential buyer, who signed a non-binding “letter of intent.” But he said they are an out-of-state group and are “highly experienced and financially in a position to make the deal happen.”
Jaeger, who had built a hotel empire in New Orleans that included many restorations, including the Jung Hotel on Canal Street, had a track record of buying decrepit properties like Plaza Tower and sitting on them for years while he waited for the right financial deal to come along.
But Waesche said he is taking a different approach and is determined to wrap up a deal as quickly as possible.
“I’ve signed a deal today with someone I’ve vetted and who I believe are serious potential buyers,” he said. “There is a new sheriff in town; I’m not Joe Jaeger. I’m determined to get this done.”