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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:
Full Service Grocery
Family Style Dining
Shopping Mall with mid-level retailers
Family Entertainment
More services, i.e. Hardware shops, postal services, shoe repair, dry cleaning, pet supplies, gym.
Great new site by Civic Center that allows you to post your ideas for neighborhood development in New Orleans. Try it out!
We need the Stein Marts, the TJ Maxx, the Marshalls. There used to be a Marshalls you could go to where you wouldn’t get something by a top designer but you could get what you needed… the closest place we have right now is Walmart in Chalmette and their selection is not good for something like a tie.
Participant in New Orleans East Neighborhood Focus Group
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.
Town Centre concept at former Lake Forest Plaza site
Casual Dining
Family Entertainment Center
Full service grocery
Mid-Level Retail Shopping
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.
We have multiple retail nodes, that is my favorite thing about retail in Mid-City. I think this is a great approach because there is a good mix of retail and residential development.
Mid-City Neighborhood Focus Group Participant
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:
Entertainment
Office Supply Store
Hardware Store
Big Box Store
Grocery Store
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.
Uptown Site Visit
Our Uptown meeting was generously hosted in the Neighborhood Housing Services offices on Freret Street, a rapidly developing corridor in the Uptown neighborhood. The large turnout at the Uptown focus group (our largest neighborhood study area) represented all facets of the Uptown business community, so rather than covering the neighborhood as a whole, we broke participants into specific groupings around the corridors where they live and work. These included: Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, Magazine Street, St. Charles Avenue, and Freret Street.
Although each group focused on a different corridor, some overall priorities for the Uptown neighborhoods came out of the focus groups discussions:
Entertainment
Fresh Food Grocer
Sporting Goods Store
Big Box Retail
Solve Parking Issues
Lake Area Site Visit
When we visited Lake Area before hosting our focus group meeting we noticed that although there are many exciting new developments in the area, there are still plenty of opportunity sites along main corridors like Harrison Avenue and Canal Blvd. This empty lot is on Harrison.
Lake Area Focus Group
Our meeting in Lake Area was hosted by Nola Beans on Harrison Avenue, one of the many great locally owned businesses in that neighborhood. After we got down to business with the meeting, we were quickly corrected on some of our terminology—what we had been referring to as the Lakeview Neighborhood should actually be called the Lake Area to incorporate all of the many communities in the northwestern parts of Orleans Parish.
Our focus group discussions in the Lake Area gave us many new insights into the needs of this community:
Boutique Stores
Improve Streets
Small Service Retailers
Develop Harrison Ave.
Provide Professional Offices
Algiers Site Visit
When we took our site visit to Algiers, we found a number of businesses on General Myers Blvd. that would be prime areas for redevelopment and rebirth as retail hubs. This is a picture of one of our favorite sites: the old Frosty Restaurant.
Gentilly Site Visit
Gentilly has an abundance of available retail spaces. The Gentilly Terrace Shopping Center is close to main retail corridors and would be a great location to bring new retail options to New Orleans
Algiers Focus Group
In Algiers we were able to meet at the fantastic Woldenburg Village, who provided us with cookies and punch—yum. We began our meeting in Algiers by giving a powerpoint presentation about our organization to the group. Afterwards, we discussed the corridors to be developed for retail and we made edits to our list based on focus group members’ input. This longer introduction to the New Orleans Business Alliance became a best practice that we used in every meeting.
Working through our list of questions, these were what focus group members identified as top retail priorities in Algiers:
1. Restaurants/Cafes/Bistros 2. Boutique/Specialty Stores 3. Fresh Food or Farmers Market 4. Cultural Retail 5. Movie Theater/Family Entertainment
Gentilly Focus Group
Our first focus group meeting was in the Gentilly neighborhood, graciously hosted by Dillard University. For our first activity, participants were able to post their ideas for retail needs in Gentilly. Later, each person explained their selection to the group.
Each neighborhood focus group featured a breakout session where participants answered questions about their shopping habits and the retail features of their neighborhood. After these conversations, each breakout group also collectively chose 5 top retail priorities for their neighborhood and shared them with the larger group.
Top 5 Overall Retail Needs in Gentilly were:
1. Family restaurant
2. Keep tax dollars in Orleans Parish
3. Family entertainment
4. Retail clothing stores
5. "Main Street" style shopping district