The Demolition of the Carrollton Shopping Center
After a Sunday afternoon spent in the Warehouse District (went to the Crescent City Farmer's Market-sponsored Festivus--which continues for the next couple of Sundays by the way so go check it out) and the Vieux Carre when I exited I-10 at South Carrollton I decided to pull over and take some shots of the ongoing demolition of the Carrollton Shopping Center. The site of course was flooded post-KTMB and although the shopping center had viable tenants and working businesses I would still suggest it was completely underutilized and its potential unrealized based upon its central and strategic location (with direct Interstate access, adjacent to a university) not just in the City of New Orleans but in the region. Additionally, the site represents one of the few large pieces of land in the "core" city suitable (i.e. don't have to tear down tens of existing housing units/historic-aged buildings, take down specimen oak trees, or decommission public street rights-of-way--a la the future Central City Home Depot, etc.) for a modern large-scale shopping development.
More to come on this subject in an upcoming future post . . .
If you want to see what's going on out there firsthand I suggest you go now as just in the days since I took the photos below, more has come down . . .
Site of now-demolished Picadilly Cafeteria. This building got taken down during the Summer and to my knowledge Louisiana-based Picadilly has no plans to return. Thanks, guys.
posted by Seymour D. Fair @ 8:13 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I live near this intersection and I pass down Palm and Carrollton nearly every day. That shopping center has always been strange. No grocery store, no pharmacy no hardware store, but a bunch of weird discount stores with ugly cheap merchandise. The Picadilly was the only "restaurant."
I never thought about it before, but there were never any shops, restaurants, etc. to serve the Xavier community, which is right across the street. UNO has sort of the same situation.
I do all my food shopping and go to Rite Aid in Jefferson Parish. It would be much more convenient and I wouldn't have to wait for the Metairie Road train if I (and all my neighbors) could just zip down to a revitalized Carrollton Shopping Center. I would prefer my tax dollars go to Orleans.
One interesting thing I saw there last week but I didn't have my camera - piles of flooded and rotting wigs from the old Wig World. Looked like someone had executed a bunch of super-models.
Ya, I've never "set foot" in the place either with exception to picking up a Thanksgiving turkey at the "outparcel" Picadilly pre-Mad Max days in 2004. I think my wife may have gone to the Big Lots every so often.
The site has too much potential to waste again . . .
I wonder about retail viability in New Orleans.
The whole city was underserved pre-K but there seems little evidence that anyone was interested in doing retail in New Orleans then. In fact retail was leaving town based on vacancies in just about every concievable area.
If it had been a concert at the High Noon Tuesday evening it would have been a sold out show. Four hundred ninety supporters of Madison's Air America affiliate, the Mic, packed into the venue with more spilling out onto the patio and into the parking lot. Multiple speakers, including politicians and Mic advertisers, took to the stage to express their concerns and frustration over the decision by Clear Channel to dump the progressive talk format and replace it with FOX Sports. But those speakers, while they all brought important messages, weren't the most striking part of the evening. What struck a chord in me was the casual conversation after the event from unsuspecting folks who sounded like they were snapped in the ass with a towel. They were saying things like, "Clear Channel doesn't care about Madison," "why does Clear Channel get to make our decisions," "Clear Channel owns too much."
It struck a nerve because it has been a long time since there has been casual talk like that in a public space.
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