A city’s downtown is its heart. It is the lifeblood of its economy, its identity. It is its cultural and commercial hub. It is the hub in the wheel from which the rest of the city branches out.
While the pandemic wreaked havoc on downtown areas — rendering them essentially ghost towns — they have been rebounding. Recent data found 85% of downtowns in America gained population between 2019 and 2023, growing at a median rate of 11% – far outpacing their respective cities. It’s no surprise that investment has been a part of this growth.
Between 2020 and 2021, Kansas City, Kansas approved 28 redevelopment projects and announced 18 more — a total of $110 billion in investment. Cleveland, Ohio has $4.8 billion in development planned and underway. Closer to home, Atlanta is in the middle of an $8.2 billion investment in their downtown area.
New Orleans recently spent more than $20 million on preparing for the last Super Bowl, not including an additional $70 million on infrastructure improvements. Fortunately, that momentum — notably through two big projects that we are excited to share more about in this, our annual Downtown issue.
As a downtown goes, so goes its city, and ours is going in the right direction.
On a smaller note, if you haven’t yet become a listener of our BizTalks weekly podcast — which I can’t believe will mark 300 episodes on Sept. 1 — it’s time to, quite literally, see what you’ve been missing. As of episode 296 we’ve started recording not just audio, but video of my approximately 20-minute conversations with local movers and shakers who share their expertise and opinions on the issues affecting all of us.
Each week, we invite you to get to know the issues, and the people doing the work to solve them — from the Alliance for Affordable Energy sharing their insight on the costs of the upcoming META data center and BGR’s data-driven take on cutting the number of New Orleans judges to what’s coming soon to Lakeside Shopping Center and French Truck Coffee’s new leadership sharing their future plans.
As business is about not just what you know but who you know, I’ve also started asking each guest some fun, get-to-know-you-style questions at the end of each podcast.
You can find every episode on our website, BizNewOrleans.com, and wherever you get podcasts.
As always, thanks for reading!
