NEW ORLEANS -- Children’s Hospital is hoping to expand its Uptown campus, adding jobs and room for more patient services.
But the project is not without growing pains, because they want to expand in part of Audubon Park.
Melisa Rey is one of the lucky ones. She and her family live Uptown, half a block from Audubon Park.
“It’s a beautiful place to spend time with the kids as a family. I know a lot of people use it for exercise,” Rey said.
Rey's house is across the street from Children's Hospital.
“The people of Orleans Parish love and value the park and they don't want to see the park taken over for concrete and steel,” she said.
Children's is planning a multi-million dollar expansion project, and right now, they're negotiating with the Audubon Commission to build on the five-and-a-half acres next to their Uptown campus.
“We're signing a long-term, cooperative endeavor agreement with the Audubon Commission,” said Children’s Hospital Vice President of Marketing Brian Landry.
The land on which Children’s wants to build is where the tennis courts and a baseball field are now. The expansion stops at the tree line adjacent to the park.
“What we're talking about is land that's adjacent to this campus that's always been zoned for medical services. The initial master plan was always to develop that site,” Landry said.
But residents are concerned about adding more concrete to a part of town where they say drainage is already a problem. Not to mention taking up what they call limited green space.
“This is a very limited resource, and once it's gone, it's gone,” Rey said.
Children’s plans to build a two to three story building set back from Tchoupitoulas Street that would house expanded outpatient services. Parking would take up a section in the middle of the lot. Then initially, two- to three-story building would border the levee.
“Closest to the river, we'll have a two to three story medical surgical building, to expand our inpatient services, including acute care beds and other services like that,” Landry said.
Part of the negotiations are to move the tennis courts to The Fly, and according to Audubon, the current courts are under-utilized.
“We just think there's a lot of other options they should consider, like building in a lot of the unused medical space in the city,” Rey said.
But Landry said this expansion would keep patient services all on one site, improving care.
“We will do our part to be good neighbors. As we develop the property, we'll be very sensitive,” he said.
They are hosting a community meeting about the project Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at the Milestone Sabis Academy, located at 5951 Patton St.
