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A new “Mad Men”-style hotel is planned for the former Our Lady of Lourdes School, a mid-century building located in the heart of the burgeoning Freret Street area of Uptown New Orleans.
The hotel project is an extension of an adjacent development that is converting the older Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church into an event space. The combined hotel and event space will cover almost the entire block bordered by Freret and Napoleon Avenue, as well as Lasalle and Jena streets.
The developers of the church include David Fusilier and Doug Cloninger. They are being joined by Zach Kupperman, whose New Orleans projects have included the Hotel St. Vincent on Magazine Street and the Drifter Motel on Tulane Avenue.
“The school building has great bones, with terrazzo floors and other mid-century features,” said Cloninger. “So we’re going to lean into that and go for a ‘Mad Men,’ Rat Pack kind of vibe in there that feels clean and contemporary.”
The L-shaped school building was completed in 1957 and covers about 50,000 square feet, not including the courtyard that connects it to the church and its 12,000 square feet of interior space. The church was completed in 1925 and the developers said they’re now on track to finish that conversion by next summer.
An anchor hotel
The Our Lady of Lourdes parish was consolidated in 2008 with St. Matthias and St. Monica parishes to form Blessed Trinity Parish, which now holds Mass at its church in the 4000 block of Broad Street. The school was shuttered after Hurricane Katrina and operated as the Holy Rosary Academy and High School from 2012 to 2019.
Kupperman said the plan is to convert the old school and convent into about 57 hotel rooms and have a restaurant and a café, keeping the old gymnasium and its vaulted ceilings as an event space.
The architect for the hotel conversion is Holly & Smith, whose projects have included St. Michael Special School in the Lower Garden District and the Delgado Community College’s Advanced Technology Center on the West Bank.
“We see this as being a community anchor and neighborhood hotel,” said Kupperman. “The idea is that it will have bigger hotel rooms than a lot of other lodging options. There will be a heavy emphasis on landscaping to make something special that feels good for the neighborhood.”
With its proximity to Uptown campuses of Tulane and Loyola universities, the marketing will be focused to a large extent on attracting parents and other visitors, as well as for gatherings like Carnival balls and graduations, Fusilier said.
The hotel will face Freret Street, which over the past decade has transformed from a down-at-heel stretch into a “restaurant row” with more than three dozen eateries, bars and coffee shops.
Best laid plans
The hotel plans have already been through the City Planning Commission, where staff have recommended approval.
There were a couple of objections by neighbors about potential parking issues. The developers said they plan for 13 on-site parking spots and are looking for a nearby lot to accommodate another 20 or so.
A block away, the old Publiq House music venue has been converted into a Credit Human outlet, which specializes in lending to lower-income borrowers. Condominiums are planned for the rest of the space, including some set aside for lower-income renters.
An original plan by Blessed Trinity Parish to turn the school property into an affordable senior rental residential complex was abandoned and the building was put up for sale again in September.
The parish announced the senior residence plan in 2021. The development was to have been led by non-profit Providence Community Housing, with Christopher Homes, the affordable housing arm of the archdiocese, running it after completion.
Providence Community and Blessed Trinity’s pastor did not respond to requests for comment.
The $28 million project had been reliant on federal and state historic tax credits as well as a federal housing loan, plus raising philanthropic money. Construction had been scheduled to begin early last year at a time of supply constraint and soaring prices for building materials.
A spokesperson for the archdiocese said the sale of the school, which is expected to be completed next month, was handled by Blessed Trinity Parish directly and was not related to the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ bankruptcy.
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