Developer Marcel Wisznia has walked a fine political line over the past two years while trying to win the needed approvals for his planned $35 million „co-living” apartment complex near Lee Circle.
But in a Central Business District neighborhood currently undergoing a building boom, his bid to pair the shared-housing project, named Two Saints, with a high-end, bowling-focused entertainment-and-restaurant operation has met resistance from some nearby residents.
Wisznia’s plan for the 140,000-square-foot development on the corner of St. Joseph Street and St. Charles Avenue consists of turning a surface parking lot and two well-worn townhouses into residences where people will rent private bedrooms and share common areas.
The Two Saints project’s feasibility is also dependent, he has said, on the approval of a viable retail tenant for 25,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. He wants that to be a high-end food-and-entertainment outfit known as Punch Bowl Social, a fast-growing Denver-based chain with locations in Phoenix, Dallas and over a dozen other cities.
„You’ve got to look at change like this as positive and it will enhance the neighborhood,” said Wisznia, noting that the site is adjacent to two gleaming new residential complexes on the same block that also have large amounts of retail space. „I don’t think having surface parking lots in the middle of the city is the highest and best use. It just doesn’t make sense.”
But even after tamping down concerns related to the shared-living apartments, Wisznia and his team are encountering opposition from some residents to what they see as a relentless push by developers to turn the historic area into another touristy amusement precinct.
At a public meeting this month with local residents, a required part of the process for gaining city approval, developers made their pitch for Punch Bowl Social. But afterward, in a series of emails between residents and others, including several City Council members, one resident described the idea as evoking „a suburban bowling alley with a loud bar, like something from 1970s Ohio.”
Some locals fear such a large entertainment outlet will lead to traffic snarls, noise, trash and other inconveniences.
Punch Bowl Social’s first outlet, in Denver. Founder Robert Thompson says the seven-year-old „eat-o-tainment” concept, which includes bowling lanes, arcade games, karaoke, ping pong, as well as „a full scratch kitchen and a meaningful craft beverage program”, is designed for neighborhood locals, not tourists.
Cassandra Sharpe, a board member of the local neighborhood association, said in the email chain, which included Jay H. Banks, the council member whose district includes the Two Saints site, that Wisznia wants to turn the neighborhood into „an amusement park.”
„I can’t think of a worse idea for our neighborhood. This belongs on Bourbon Street,” said Sharpe, dismissing the residential part of the project as „a boarding house.”
It’s not yet clear if her view will translate into formal opposition from neighborhood leaders. Michael Duplantier, president of the Lafayette Square Association, said members will discuss the proposals and come up with a position in a few weeks.
The debate over Wisznia’s project is the latest installment in a wider discussion about the future of the Lafayette Square area of the CBD, which has special city protection because of its historical significance and its revival in recent decades as a residential neighborhood.
Local activists are reluctant to back anything they feel would change the character of the neighborhood, recently protesting proposals for several new hotels in the area.
The shared-living part of the project has been under discussion for more than two years and already has won the needed city approvals and gained an Industrial Development Board PILOT tax break. That deal stipulated that the 68 shared residential units in Wisznia’s Two Saints project will be rent-controlled, with rents of $1,376 and $1,572 per month that are aimed at middle-income individuals and households making between $35,000 and $60,000 a year.
Wisznia said he thinks that the tenants will include people employed in city hotels and restaurants, local government employees, students and others who otherwise would find living in the city center prohibitively costly.
There is a lot at stake for Wisznia, who is close to finishing a $50 million mixed-use development, The Garage, that is on the same city block as the Two Saints site and that includes luxury apartments and condominiums in a building that also features car elevators.
Wisznia has also been cooperating with the Woodward-Audubon joint venture that is developing another $50 million-plus mixed-use project on the block: The Julia on St. Charles. A Woodward executive, William Hoffman, turned up at the neighborhood meeting to lend support for the Two Saints proposal.
„Between The Julia and The Garage and Two Saints, there’s $150 million in real estate being developed in one city block,” said Wisznia. „We would do nothing to negatively impact the investment. We need to complement what they’re doing, and they need to complement what we’re doing.”
He said that every aspect of the Two Saints development has been thought out with the neighborhood’s character in mind, as well as the kind of change that he feels is necessary to move it forward.
„Our passion is solving housing in a creative way, to make it more inclusive than it is and giving people an opportunity to live closer to where they work,” he said.
Wisznia teamed with a New York company called Common to design the co-living operation so that it removes the „pinch points” that might otherwise make such arrangements unbearable for some.
„We keep the good parts of shared housing while removing the annoyances,” is Common’s slogan, and that means features at Two Saints such as a weekly cleaning service (free for the shared spaces, an additional fee for bedrooms), WiFi internet and other utilities as part of the rent, a free laundry room and some home supplies.
A rendering of the exterior courtyard view of Marcel Wisznia’s proposed $35 million Two Saints development at the junction of St. Charles Avenue and St. Joseph Street in the Central Business District.
As for Punch Bowl Social, it was founded seven years ago by Mississippi native Robert Thompson. Besides a restaurant and bar, the concept includes bowling lanes, arcade games, darts, ping pong and karaoke rooms.
Thompson said that in the 18 outlets the chain has opened, from the first in Denver to the latest in Arlington, Virginia, they always aim to blend into their local neighborhoods.
„We cater to locals in every market we go into; we don’t really know how to market to tourists,” he said, aiming to allay fears of some residents that it would attract rowdy crowds.
Simcha Ward, who is working on the project for Wisznia, said Punch Bowl Social is the kind of „experiential retailer” that brings city streets back to life. He said the developer also expects to close soon on a deal for a similar type of retailer for the ground-floor space at The Garage on Carondelet Street, as part of the effort to transform that whole block, making the area much more bustling.
„Neighborhoods are always changing, and it’s important for me personally, as an urbanist and as someone who cycles, that we ensure we have a broad diversity of people and opportunities in the center of our city (to) increase street-level activity in the CBD,” Ward said.
Another selling point the developers hope will sway people is the 200 jobs that they say Punch Bowl Social will create.
Banks, whose opinion on the project will likely be key in the City Council’s decision, was noncommittal in responding to Sharpe’s email. He said he „appreciates (her) concerns and will take this into consideration.”
Banks’ director of land use, Jenna Burke, said her boss „is passionate about affordable housing and is very, very determined to ensure that people who work in New Orleans will also be able to continue to live in the city.”
She said Banks also will scrutinize any project „block by block” to ensure that it fits in with the neighborhood aesthetic.