Mobile Workshops & Walking Tours
A wide variety of mobile workshops and walking tours will be available to Brownfields 2009 conference participants.
QUICK LINKS:
Lockport: Using Its History to Create Its Future ($20/person)
Sunday, November 15, 10:00 am-4:00 pm
Leave the city for a while and journey to bayou country in rural Louisiana. A 50-minute drive will take to Lockport on the banks of Bayou Lafourche. Lockport’s historic downtown is where town government, joined by a strong volunteer base, is focusing it revitalization efforts. A series of brownfields assessments has added impetus to those efforts.
The tour includes three historic buildings—examples of adaptive reuse—plus the Bayouside Park and recently acquired locks from which Lockport derives its name. The Center for Traditional Wooden Boatbuilding will display vintage boats and demonstrate boatbuilding. The Bayou Playhouse will present a Louisiana-themed performance. And the Bayou Lafourche Folklife Museum will offer its permanent exhibit, titled “Bayou Excursion: 1910.” The day’s events will also include a slide presentation of the area’s unique history. And, of course, Cajun cuisine will be featured on the menu for lunch!
Landscaping the Andrew H. Wilson Elementary School ($20/person)
Sunday, November 15, 1:00 - 5:00 pm
The Andrew H. Wilson Elementary school and the Broadmoor neighborhood spent two weeks under water after Hurricane Katrina. The existing school structure has been renovated and new facilities added. The building incorporated many sustainable components and expects to achieve LEED Gold certification. The school will open for students in January 2010. Our volunteer effort is to install landscaping for the school. As part of the Brownfields 2009 Conference focus to improve properties, we will help revitalize school and will be installing native and well-adapted plants based on a well-planned environmental design.
Bring your enthusiasm and your work gloves for this worthwhile activity. The EPA is partnering with local community organizations including Broadmoor, Groundwork, and other organizations to make this event possible. Planting tools will be provided.
This event is voluntary and participants waive liability in the event injuries occur. Shuttle bus service from the convention center to the site will run from 1:00 - 2:00 pm. Return service from the site to the convention center will run from 4:00 - 5:00 pm.
Constance Lofts: A Walking Tour in New Orleans’ Warehouse District (FREE)
Monday, November 16, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Constance Lofts, a New Orleans Brownfields and Voluntary Remediation Program (VRP) project is located in New Orleans’ warehouse district. The site is a multi-story brick warehouse building that predates 1885 and was used in the 1930s as a warehouse for chemicals including pesticides and herbicides. The site is being redeveloped by Classic Construction of New Orleans, LLC (CCNO), a Louisiana developer-builder. Results of the Phase II ESA indicated levels of Lead requiring management making the Brownfields Program and VRP attractive to the owners/developers. The combination of the Louisiana Brownfields Investors Tax Credits, CDBG financing ($5,000,000+) combined with Historic Tax Credits and Go-Zone money made this project viable. CCNO is currently in the process of converting the warehouse into residential units.
Bohemian Bywater ($20/person)
Monday, November 16, 1:30 – 4:30 pm
The historic Bywater neighborhood is part of the “sliver by the river” that escaped flood waters during Hurricane Katrina thanks to the naturally higher ground along the banks of the Mississippi River. The working class neighborhood was settled in the late 1800s and early 1900s and its old characteristics of corner stores, compact development, and front porches embody elements of new urbanism. Following Hurricane Katrina, there was much interest in developing dense residential and mixed use projects in the neighborhood, some of which raised gentrification concerns. See and hear about the development of the Bywater Art Lofts affordable housing project which converted an old uniform manufacturing/sewing factory; ICINola, a proposed modern-design mixed use project in an old meat processing factory; Planet of the Dreamers (a former adhesive factory that used RLF money for environmental clean up.); and the proposed re-use of a 100 year old Naval Support station with over 1 million square feet of floor area.
Rolling on the River: A Walking Tour of New Orleans’ Riverfront to the Iconic “NOPSI” Electrical Generation Building (FREE)
Tuesday, November 17, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
This is a walking tour along the section of New Orleans’ Mississippi River frontage from the Convention Center to the former New Orleans Public Service Inc. (NOPSI) electrical generation building. Participants will see first hand the industrial dock areas that are planned for redevelopment under multiple programs, such as the City’s “Redeveloping the Crescent” plan, and the Trust for Public Land’s “New Orleans Upriver Greenway Corridor,” as well as the already completed riverfront redevelopment at the Erato and Julia Street Cruise Ship Terminal and the Port of New Orleans Administrative Building. The tour will end at the privately owned NOPSI building in the planning stages of redevelopment, known for its landmark smoke stacks that tower over the riverfront. The tour will include presentations by professionals involved in the riverfront renaissance, and will conclude with a bus ride back to the Convention Center.
Green Job Training in the Bayou: NIEHS Job Training Programs at Work (FREE)
Tuesday, November 17, 10:15 am - 12:15 pm
The Center for Construction Research and Training has an apprenticeship program with the Carpenters & Millwright Union at 1215 Japonica Street in New Orleans’ 9th ward, near both the Global Green and Make It Right (sponsored by actor Brad Pitt) green building sites. In addition to the traditional environmental and construction training, this program offers students introductory training in green building and weatherization, preparing them to enter the green construction industry. Dillard University's Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DU/DSCEJ) conducts worker training from a facility near the university’s Gentilly campus. DU's campus has two LEED certified buildings under construction and there is a green building site nearby on which DU trainees have worked. This tour features a stop at both training facilities and an opportunity to learn about effective community outreach that led to local residents training for jobs to help rebuild the city of New Orleans. A brief stop to tour one of Make It Right homes may also be included.
Journey across the River: Brownfield Encouragement and Inspiration on the West Bank
($20/person)
Tuesday, November 17, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Join us as we travel across the Mississippi River to the Malter International Bulk Chemical site in Gretna and Progressive Church’s Future Family Life Center site in Marrero. At the Malter site, learn about how it transitioned from an illegal dump draining the city’s coffers to a clean site. The site will now be used to expand an adjacent facility, keeping the business in Gretna. From there we’ll travel to Progressive Church’s future Family Life Center Site, and hear the site’s story from Pastor Sterling Mealancon. A former junkyard with asbestos in soil contamination, this 18-acre site traveled through the Brownfield process from Phase I ESA all the way to cleanup using both a Brownfield’s loan and an EPA Cleanup Grant. Both sites were enrolled in the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (LDEQ’s) Voluntary Remediation Program and will feature speakers from LDEQ. If you need some brownfields inspiration and encouragement to tackle challenging sites, don’t miss this mobile workshop!
Mid-City: Redevelopment of American Can Factory and Falstaff Brewery ($20/person)
Wednesday, November 18, 9:15 am – 12:00 pm
This workshop will take in two major redevelopment projects in New Orleans’ Mid-City community. We’ll start with American Can manufacturing site, which had been vacant for more than 20 years when a local developer, HRI, saw an opportunity for a new mixed-use facility. The community of Mid-City grew around the facility after employees began to initiate housing construction so they could live near their jobs. Former New Orleans mayor Sidney Barthelemy will host us at the multi-facet structure to present the struggles, obstacles, and successes involved in the multi-year process.
From American Can Apartments, we will proceed to the newly redeveloped Falstaff Brewery, another mixed-use complex. The site once housed the Falstaff Beer brewery, which was a popular roof-top gathering spot for weddings, anniversaries, old-fashioned fish fries, and crab boils. In the mid-seventies, the property was abandoned and slowly fell into a state of disrepair. Among the environmental issues addressed during redevelopment were transformer testing, removal and disposal, asbestos and lead abatement, air monitoring and confirmation sampling. The developer, Falstaff Associates I LLC and Falstaff Historic Investments LLC of New Orleans, is proud to bring the fascinating combination of 1930’s Bottle House, Fermenting Rooms, and Stock Tower back into use.
For More Information, Contact
Cory Fleming
ICMA
207.854.1083 (office)