8th / 9th Ward Site Visit
Along corridors like St. Claude Avenue and Claiborne Avenue, retail development is sparse. Many members of our focus group told us that they shop online or travel to St. Bernard Parish for necessities—a shorter distance for these residents to travel than to retailers in Orleans Parish.
8th and 9th Ward Focus Group
We met representatives from this group of neighborhoods in the Lower 9th Ward at City Light Church on St. Claude Avenue. The residents we spoke with were very engaged in a number of different neighborhood associations and all had expressed to us the deep need for development in their neighborhood which is still lagging in recovery after Hurricane Katrina.
During the large-group conversation we had with residents of this highly underserved area of New Orleans, we heard that retail development needs to focus on attracting:
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New Orleans East Site Visit
Prime for redevelopment in New Orleans East is the former site of the Lake Forest Plaza—a space zoned for retail development and deep in the collective memory of our focus group participants as a former retail anchor for the neighborhood.
New Orleans East Focus Group
In New Orleans East, we met in the Household of Faith Church. It was a rainy night, and unfortunately, a smaller group than we were expecting attended the meeting. However, this allowed us to sit together as one group to answer the questions. Many of the focus group participants in this neighborhood were long-term residents of New Orleans East who spoke to the history of the neighborhood and their challenges in changing perception about the area to attract retail development, despite its unique availability of land for redevelopment and high rate of homeownership.
With all New Orleans East focus group members at the same table, it was easy to build consensus around the highest priorities for retail development in the area.
Mid City Site Visit
Mid-City has plenty of retail opportunities along long-neglected corridors like Broad Street and Tulane Avenue. One of our favorite sites for retail development is the site of the old Schwegmann’s grocery store on Broad, residents in our focus group also pointed this out as an area in great need of another grocery store.
Mid City Site Visit
In Mid-City we were invited to conduct our focus group at the Ruby Slipper Café on Cortez Street, a popular locally-owned restaurant. The Mid-City residents we met in our meeting, just as in all of the other meetings we had been to, were very connected in various neighborhood associations, long term neighborhood residents, and small business owners. During the entire neighborhood retail research project, we met amazing people who care deeply about their neighborhoods—and by coming together, we all generated great ideas for expanding retail opportunities for each community.
We learned a lot about retail needs in Mid-City, this is the list of their top priorities:
Uptown Site Visit
There were many sites we could identify as prime locations for retail development in Uptown, but one area of interest is the Claiborne Corridor between Napoleon Ave. and the 10 Freeway onramp—although this street has very high traffic counts and is a main commercial corridor for the Broadmoor neighborhood, many of its buildings remain vacant post-Katrina.
