NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - New Orleans hopes to beat out Nashville, Washington D.C. and other major cities in its bit to host its 12th Super Bowl in 2031. But NFL officials say the city’s aging hotel stock needs major upgrades if the city wants the big game.
Last Wednesday (March 11), the CBD Historic District Landmarks Commission made one of the first moves to add a new hotel within feet of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
The commission approved a recommendation to demolish the Sugar Mill venue, right across from the convention center on Convention Center Boulevard. The recommendation will now go to a New Orleans City Council committee, where it will then need approval from the full council for a complete teardown of the site.
The convention center, which owns the Sugar Mill site, needs the approval to demolish the venue to make way for the Omni Headquarters Hotel, a planned $500 million modern hotel with a 1,000-room capacity and 100,000 square feet of meeting space.
Morial Convention Center president and CEO Jim Cook says the Omni project is long overdue for the corridor.
“The last time the city of New Orleans built a convention hotel was the Sheraton New Orleans, which was 1982. It’s been well over 40 years since we as a city have been able to embark on a project of this scale,” Cook said.
The construction of the Omni hotel needs its own set of approvals and permits, separate from the Sugar Mill demolition paperwork.
Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans and Co., says a new hotel so close to the convention hub of New Orleans will boost tourism to the city across the board.
“It will help us to attract between 25-30 new events to the city each year. That means more jobs, more revenue for the city,” Leger said.
If the demolition and the project get the proper approvals from the New Orleans City Council, developers expect the Omni hotel to be built and opened by 2030.
Cook says the NFL is monitoring the project closely, as the league decides whether New Orleans will host its pinnacle event five years from now.
“What the NFL said to us, and relayed to Mrs. (Gayle) Benson in a recent meeting, was that if we do not build and refresh existing hotel stock in the city, we will not be considered,” Cook said. “If we build something, we will become a contender for the (2031) Super Bowl. If we don’t, we’re not a contender.”
While the convention center is trying to break ground on its new hotel, it’s also working with developers on a new neighborhood, the River District.
Crews are currently working on the River District’s high-rise office building Shell Riverside, which is expected to open next spring as the new headquarters for Shell in New Orleans.
Once the office space opens, Leger says other developers will start building apartments, condos, hotels and entertainment areas.
“There’s a lot of talk, with a lot of potential investors, whether they’re developers for housing or developers for entertainment venues,” he said.
Convention Center leaders say tackling the Omni project and launching the River District simultaneously will help New Orleans stick out over the next few years.
“We need momentum. We need to prove we can do big projects. We need to prove we can compete with other cities in the country right now,” Cook said.
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