NEW ORLEANS — At a June 5 meeting, the Historic District Landmarks Commission voted six to three to deny a request to demolish the former Our Lady of Lourdes School building at the corner of Freret Street and Napoleon Avenue.
Developers Zach Kupperman and David Fuselier are hoping to tear down the structure, which was built in 1957, to make way for a new single-story specialty grocery store that they believe will create a new retail anchor and symbolic gateway on the booming Freret Street commercial corridor.
Last week, the New Orleans City Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit on the site for a grocery store over 10,000 square feet that sells packaged alcoholic beverages. Although developers aren’t sharing details, many observers of the development believe that Trader Joe’s, the popular national grocery chain, is the target tenant for the project.
The CPC approval was granted under the condition that the HDLC approved the demolition of the roughly 50,000-square-foot building designed by architect Philip P. Cazale in the “international” style.
Now that the HDLC has denied the request, the developers may be abe to file an appeal with the New Orleans City Council, but the next move is unclear.
The vote to deny the request came after more than an hour of comments for and against the demolition.
Joining developers in support of the plan were several local business owners. Comments were read into the record from Neal Bodenheimer, owner of Freret Street cocktail bar Cure, and John Michael Rowland of Pigeon and Whale.
Opponents included the HDLC staff, several commission members and other preservationists who believe the building has historic value. Representatives of Louisiana’s State Historic Preservation Office attended the meeting to answer questions but not to take a position.
“Recent discourse surrounding this building at both the City Planning Commission meeting last week and in the subsequent news article, misrepresented the historic status of the building, dismissing it as a non-historic building having no historical significance,” said MaryNell Nolan-Wheatley of the Preservation Resource Center, at the meeting. “The National Historic Preservation Act defines a historic property as any building included in or eligible for the national register. So this is by definition a historic building.”
Wheatley said that the building “does not appear to merit the same distinction as the remarkable collection of modern public schools built in the city in the 1950s, many of which were architectural marvels, and nearly all of which unfortunately have been demolished.” But she said the demolition request feels like a continuation of a pattern in which modern buildings and schools have been labeled as “non-historic and unworthy of preservation.”
The last school operating in the former Our Lady of Lourdes building closed in 2019 and the building has sat empty since. In 2021, developers attempted to adapt the space into affordable rental apartments for seniors. At that time, they successfully argued before the HDLC that the school building should be considered a part of a campus along with the former Our Lady of Lourdes Church building and rectory, which were built earlier and have more obvious historic value.
The historic designation for the entire campus meant the school building would qualify for historic preservation tax credits. Ultimately, that project failed to move forward, but the former school’s historic designation remains.
Rebecca Gieger of Sherman Strategies, which is representing the developers, thinks it’s an undeserved title.
“The church was originally the focal point of the square, much larger in scale than any of the other buildings,” Geiger said at the HDLC meeting. “The original school building and rectory were both torn down. The replacement building was built in 1957 and is what you see today. This building does not at all complement the historic architectural features of the area, the neighborhood or the historic district. It dominates the square and overtakes the church. This large structure also doesn’t respect or acknowledge the historic urban development pattern of the neighborhood.”
Geiger said the new development team’s proposed design restores the church as the focal point of the square. Zach Kupperman, the developer responsible for Hotel Saint Vincent and the Drifter Hotel, among others, agrees with that assessment.
“I have been a part of many historic restorations throughout my career and take great pride in the history and architecture of New Orleans and in adaptive reuse projects,” he said. “The existing school building is not original. It does not contribute to the Uptown historic district in its architectural style nor was it built during the period of significance of the district.”
Kenneth Gowland of architecture firm MetroStudio, which created designs for the proposed grocery building, argued that the current building’s style doesn’t enhance the New Orleans aesthetic.
“The National Park Service and [State Historic Preservation Office] characterize this as an international style building,” Gowland said. “And that’s more appropriate and indicative of this featureless austere building that lacks any respect for local architectural traditions in urban patterns and forms. As is typical with the international style of building, it delivers a generic and placeless design that is not sympathetic to the historic architecture of the district, and it results in a poverty of spirit and form to the surrounding context.”
Gowland also argued that the necessary work to bring the building up to modern codes, such as breaking up the foundation to install new plumbing, would alter the building so dramatically that it may no longer qualify for historic tax credits.
He explained that the layout of building, which was purpose built to house a school, is much more difficult to repurpose than, say, a warehouse or even the former Bultman Funeral Home on St. Charles Avenue, which was converted into a Borders bookstore in 2008 then became an outpost of The Fresh Market grocery store three years later.
To the anti-demolition camp, Gowland’s comments support the idea that the building is better suited for residential use rather than retail. One neighbor, for instance, defended the viability of the existing building — praising its main entry and terrazzo floors — while expressing concern about the design of its potential replacement.
“A one-story market does not speak to the density and use of this corridor,” she said. “It does not mimic historic patterns in urban forms of Freret. This is not a parking lot-forward neighborhood. This is not a single-story structure neighborhood.”
Before the no vote, HDLC commissioner Tim Lupin, who is a practicing architect, weighed in with similar comments.
“I appreciate everybody from the development team telling us that this building isn’t significant, that it’s not historic, and that it’s non-contributory to any sort of historical or architectural guidelines that we might be interested in assessing here,” Lupin said. “But I like the building, I think it does actually contribute. And, you know, I think it’s got some really nice details to it.”