In an effort to get some of the tax dollars that are crossing out of New Orleans city limits and to revitalize an area devastated by Katrina, zoning changes are are being proposed to try to help bring big box retail stores to Claiborne Avenue in the Broadmoor and Central City areas.

WWL-TV

If some developers have their way, parts of Claiborne Avenue could open up to big box retailers.

Councilwoman Stacy Head is a proponent of the idea. She said it is tough to see all the tax dollars being used on rebuilding going out of the city as people stream to the Home Depots, Best Buys and Wal-Marts, few of which are located inside the city limits.

“Some of us just can’t go to Sax Fifth Avenue to buy our panty hose,” she said. “We need to have more retail because those kinds of outlets just aren’t here.”

Developer Pres Kabacoff agrees.

“At the end of the day, if that’s where people are going to shop, New Orleans needs to retain its tax base by locating where people want to shop, just put it in appropriate places and design it correctly.”

Kabacoff has some experience with trying to bring retail to New Orleans city limits. He ran into a wall of resistance for his project, which included a Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas.

“There was a lot of concern that we could have traffic problems, that we would close a lot of stores on Magazine Street and that we would be aesthetically inappropriate,” he said.

Of the few big box dealers that the city did have, many were in New Orleans East and few have reopened since Katrina.

Now, some city planners have their eyes on Claiborne Avenue from Earhart to Napoleon for a major retail corridor. Head said she thinks the Claiborne option would have less stringent opposition than the Tchoupitoulas Wal-Mart.

“It wasn't an easy fit. It wasn't incredibly logical to every single person,” she recalled. “Whereas New Orleans East, Claiborne Avenue, places like that, there really is no reason not to put them there."    

Head said the development could give the street a facelift, and provide jobs within walking distance for people living in Broadmoor and Central City.

"With change in New Orleans you're gonna get some kind of controversy but I think people in post-Katrina New Orleans recognize that the specialty shops on Magazine Street and larger-scale retail development are not mutually exclusive in a community,” said Head.