Office tower in New Orleans receives pre-demo funding

The Governmental Affairs Committee of the New Orleans City Council reportedly has approved $2.7 million in funding earmarked toward security and safety measures at the nearly 50-year-old Plaza Tower building in that city.

The 45-story, 485,000-square foot building was constructed in the mid-1960s in downtown New Orleans to host office tenants. By the early 2000s, the building struggled to maintain its tenant base and became the target of proposed residential redevelopment plans.

By the early 2020s, however, New Orleans media reports consistently portrayed the by then vacant structure as crumbling and as host to fires started by intruders.

A mid-December news report on the website of New Orleans-based WWL-TV quotes a city council member as saying some of the $2.7 million will go toward “abatement to make sure that [building] parts aren’t falling off on people anymore.”

The word abatement is more commonly applied to the assessment and removal of potentially hazardous materials including asbestos and lead paint or pipes. Local media coverage portrays the presence of asbestos and mold as among the reasons earlier tenants had left the Plaza Tower.

The news report makes it unclear whether such traditional abatement measures are covered by the approved $2.7 million in funding or by an estimated $28 million in funding that may need to be approved to demolish the empty building.

According to WWL, the Plaza Tower’s owner died suddenly in a traffic accident this June. The TV station says he had been seeking buyers for the property, but in the meantime had incurred fines from the city because of nuisances and dangers posed by falling debris and city responses to fires.