From Above

Annihilate, verb \ə-ˈnī-ə-ˌlāt\

"to cause to cease to exist"

A helicopter flight reveals the tragic scene in New Orleans, where hundreds of structures - and hundreds of people, along with dozens of businesses - have been carved out of the cityscape.

In the first photo, the wreckage of the recently occupied Blood Center facility lies strewn in the upper left corner of the shot.  Nine houses sit in a staging area for theoretical moves off the site.  McDonogh No. 11 School, too, remains.  Four additional houses, near the bottom of the shot, are to be moved off, also in theory, at some future date.  Note, too, that the high voltage power line still crosses the site and one lonely tree is cordoned off with orange fencing.

The second photo shows the former Grand Palace Hotel and the large existing parking structure behind it.  They are scheduled to be demolished in about November.

The final photo shows the full extent of the loss in both the VA and UMC footprints - the vast, unnecessary emptiness.

*All photos in this post courtesy of Ms. Sandra Stokes.

The Prairie

The VA Footprint, S. Rocheblave Street still under construction in the foreground, as seen from just outside the perimeter looking toward the river.  The Blood Center and the former Grand Palace Hotel, along with Charity Hospital, are all still visible off in the distance.  The LSU or UMC Footprint starts where the trees visible along S. Galvez.

The live oaks off on the right are the ones that remain of the many that lined what was once Banks Street.

In the words of one Anthony Turducken: "lower mid-city = urban prairie"

Expropriation Law Inside the Footprint

I've noted the existence of a variety of law suits relating to the over 150 expropriations in the VA and LSU sites over time.

Derrick Morrison from the Committee to Reopen Charity recently excerpted from one that I haven't highlighted in depth to date here on the blog - the suit filed by the Blood Center of Southeast Louisiana.

The Blood Center was evicted from its facilities earlier this month after expropriation (see above notice photo and move out photo below) and is now operating temporarily out of a former car dealership in New Orleans East.

What are the chief legal arguments involved in the suit against the LSU Board of Supervisors?  Well, many of them align quite closely with the more general arguments that have been raised here and elsewhere:

The attorneys for The Blood Center make some great observations:

Here's a view of the Blood Center's current home out in The East:

Scraps

The LSU Footprint looked like this from afar yesterday - McDonogh No. 11 School surrounded by a smattering of remaining historic homes set for moving and a number of other buildings - the former Southern Electronics site, the former Blood Center building, and a former Cox warehouse building off on the right.

Incredibly ill-advised

You heard it here first, but Fox8 News traces the hectic and premature departure of the Blood Center, long located in the proposed LSU Footprint, to a temporary facility in an old car dealership in The East:

"It's just hard to sit here and watch it. We put so much into that facility. This is my life," said Blood Center President Billy Wheales. It's really mind boggling for me considering we have been here for more than 50 years."


The state gave the Blood Center an August 1st deadline to be out of the remainder of the building.


This has made for a hectic few weeks and an unusual move to New Orleans East to the site of an old car dealership. For a facility that supplies the entire region with blood, it's been a challenging transition," he says.

And there you have it.  Functionally, by forcing the Blood Center out of the site unnecessarily, the State of Louisiana, LSU, and the UMC Board have jeopardized the blood supply, an important aspect of the metro region's healthcare.

The site plan for the UMC could have easily incoporated the Blood Center facility, but as with McDonogh No. 11 and Deutsches Haus, it decidedly quite forcefully not to do so.  There was no reason to weaken or put the blood supply at risk when the land the facility sat on was not essential to building the proposed medical complex - a hospital that does not have adequate financing or a business plan.

As with so many aspects of this process, I'm forced to sit back and ask rhetorically, once again...where are the adults in the room?  Can someone tell me what is really driving all this belligerent insistence?  One can look at land, at power, at financial greed...but this just does not make any sense.

The Blood Center is Gone

Not the physical building - not yet.  But the entity itself - the staff, the equipment, the vehicles - they've all been relocated temporarily to a location far out in The East...miles and miles and miles away from the medical facilities that are clustered in and around the CBD.  I saw the bloodmobiles next to the temporary building - a sad little affair - as I drove by on Sunday and the lonely guard in the guard tower confirmed the location when the photo above was taken on Tuesday.

Yesterday, a few last moving trucks came in with crews to finish up.

It's absurd that this useful and critical facility was forced to move...for a destructive project with no business plan and inadequate financing.

The thing that makes the least sense is that Governor Jindal, after asking the UMC Board to look at all options for the UMC, has goaded Jerry Jones on, and the contractors have just kept clearing the proposed UMC site at the state's urging.  It renders Jindal's words about studying alternatives absolutely hollow because it effectively constrains the options on the table.

The LSU Footprint

[Click to enlarge any photos]

Note the several functioning businesses remain active in the site - Southern Electronics (set to move this month), The Blood Center (final photo at left), and Mid-City Automotive (barely visible in the distance in the center shot). The towering Grand Palace Hotel still stands off in the first shot above, as does McDonogh No. 11 School in the final shot.

Approximately 15 historic homes remain after dozens have been demolished in the past 9 months.

Not a single building has been moved off the site since site preparation started.

More

This building, part of the Blood Center complex in the UMC Footprint, fell to the machinery yesterday.

A good deal of green space surrounded the building - except for one house that held out against the Blood Center's push to acquire the entire block in years past, as former residents of the UMC have pointed out.  It was not fully utilized.  And now the UMC is, in turn, causing that building and the entire block to be cleared.

Interestingly, the one house on Palmyra that held out, already demolished, shows up on FEMA's "Zombie Demolitions" list - it's one of the 919 demolitions that FEMA is set to fund now that Mayor Landrieu has revived the demolition program Mayor Nagin halted some years ago.  There was one other marginal structure on S. Roman that was on the list as well.  The Preservation Resource Center is tracking the list, and here's a map showing the two dots in the UMC Footprint, both already demolished.

From a Facebook Comment

"Forget it. I work for The Blood Center and despite pleas to City, Parish and State officials (who all stated that they agreed with our dilemna), LSU just bulldozed their wishes through. We purchased three pieces of property just around t...he corner on Canal St in January of last year. We've been trying to get permits since then, but, as we all know, City Hall runs at two speeds, slow and non-existent. Because of we are regualted by the FDA, its a little more involved when we have to move compared to other businesses. They kept pushing to expropriate our property. So now we are having to move into a building that is half-finished, and move other operations to an abandoned car dealership temporarily for 6 months. All this so they can tear the building down that we've been in for over 50 years so they can create (and get this), FOR GREEN SPACE FOR THE NEW TEACHING HOSPITAL!!! After Katrina, and now this, I think it is safe to say that government has become a hindrance and not a help to its citizens. To add insult to injury, they only offered us $60/sq ft for our property...try buying a mobile home for that much!! Our space is comparable to a hospital...which the State says will cost them $637/sq ft to build."

WWLTV - Video of Blood Center's Objections to UMC

Blood Center on state's UMC plan: "I guess I find it somewhat ridiculous”

This issue involving the Blood Center, one of the largest occupants of the LSU Footprint, is even fishier, as pointed out in a WWLTV piece:

In the meantime, the state says it has gotten two appraisals on the Blood Center properties and made an offer based on "the higher of the two appraisals."


But Weales said this is where the disagreement over the value of the Blood Center's properties becomes curious. He said the state refuses to show him its appraisals.


“Which I find somewhat appalling,” he said. “I guess I'm wondering what are they trying to hide from me at this point?”


We have asked spokesman Michael DiResto why the Division of Administration has refused to provide a copy of its appraisal. He said, "We do not give out copies of appraisals to any property owners..."


The Blood Center has bought a building in the 2600 block of Canal Street and the land behind it for the new Blood Center. But since the teaching hospital will be one of its biggest clients, Weales argues it makes more sense for the Blood Center to stay where it is right now.


“Being the fact that we are a biomedical company and we are the provider of blood and blood components to the Medical Center of Louisiana,” Weales said, “it makes perfect sense for us to be in the middle of the biomedical corridor.”

Mr. Weales was asking all the right questions and making all the right observations.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that he was on fire:

And Weales says to take a look at the footprint for the new hospital. It shows the property that the Blood Center now occupies on the corner of the campus will be green space.


“So I'm really curious as to why they need this property,” Weales said.


At a time when the state has a budget crisis and when it still doesn't have hundreds of millions of dollars lined up to finance the new hospital, Weales argues it makes no sense to pay millions of dollars -- whatever the final price -- to build green space around the new hospital.


“Absolutely not,” Weales said. “Not only that they have yet to be able to completely finance this project.”