South Carrollton/South Claiborne Walgreen's Redevelopment: Issue Deferred Until 3 August. A Design Compromise on the Horizon?

Shelley Midura staffer Alex Morgan sent this update email last night concerning yesterday's City Council meeting in which the Walgreen's Redevelopment project was on the agenda:

Dear District A resident,

I just wanted to get you up to date on two of many issues that our office has been working on that were to be addressed at today’s city council meeting. One was and the other was not due to a last minute cancellation by the city attorney.

Claiborne & Carrollton --

The first was today’s deferment for two weeks of the decision on the Claiborne & Carrollton issue. As you are likely aware we have been working with all the parties involved on this for weeks to reach consensus so the project could move forward with unanimous support. It was in the early part of the weeks of negotiations that our office achieved compromise with the neighborhood associations, the leaseholder of the property and grocery store developer. It was only recently that we achieved a breakthrough in regards to Walgreen’s position that they could not adhere to our zoning laws and build to the corner in accordance with the Carrollton overlay.

Since this was the obstacle that had been preventing the project from being unanimously supported by all parties involved in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods it allowed the Councilmember to defer this issue today until the August 3rd City Council meeting to now allow Walgreen’s to approach this project in manner that can only be described as a “win-win” for everyone involved.

We must express how thankful we are to Walgreen’s for working through this with our community and responding to its needs. We are also very grateful to Robert’s Fresh Market and the Neighborhood Associations for their patience and being so involved and committed to seeing this through.

It’s not over yet but we believe we are finally close to an outcome that everyone can be proud of.



Bruce "cutesy-poo" Eggler's coverage of the story from the Times-Picayune can be read here.


A special thanks to Shelley Midura and Alex Morgan and the City Council for this deferment and for fostering the behind the scenes negotiations and discussions which can hopefully lead to a design solution all involved parties are content with. Everyone can come out of this smelling like a rose, especially Walgreen's . . . the value of working with the community, caring about the community's concerns, etc. are a PR goldmine for a corporation that quite frankly hasn't come across the best over it's tenure in the New Orleans market. Let's make this thing happen . . .

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