In a matter of weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt a significant economic blow to New Orleans, hitting the tourism and convention industries particularly hard. In early April, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center began serving as a medical monitoring facility for coronavirus patients who no longer need acute hospital care. Despite the extraordinary new circumstances, Convention Center officials are pressing forward to finalize a deal to build a 1,200-room hotel attached to the center.
The proposed terms include nearly $800 million in public contributions over 40 years, making it one of the largest public-private partnerships in memory in New Orleans. Conventional Wisdom: Pausing the Convention Hotel Deal to Assess the Pandemic’s Impact and Reduce Public Costs highlights the risks of moving forward with the project absent an informed analysis of the pandemic’s longer-term impacts on tourism and conventions. It also includes BGR’s pre-pandemic analysis that raises questions about the size and necessity of the proposed public contributions. The report makes recommendations in keeping with BGR’s mission of promoting the effective use of public resources.
The report recommends that the Convention Center and its board refrain from entering into any agreements concerning the hotel project while the pandemic is ongoing. It further recommends that they commission a new or updated hotel feasibility study once the pandemic subsides, taking into account anticipated longer-term impacts from the pandemic on convention activity. They should pursue the hotel project further only if the study demonstrates a strong likelihood of success.
If the project eventually proceeds, Convention Center officials must reduce excessive public costs by implementing measures that would provide the greatest reduction in public contributions. This includes consideration of replacing tax rebates with an upfront payment and negotiating more favorable bond terms.
Finally, the report urges the Convention Center to improve its transparency and accountability for the hotel project. This includes providing the public with more accessible documents, including the new or updated feasibility study and any draft agreements prior to approval.
On April 4, 2024, BGR provided research-based guidance to New Orleans City Council leaders as they review economic development incentive programs. Our letter to the council president and vice president draws on our extensive body of work on property tax subsidies authorized by payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) programs. The council leaders announced their […]
OVERVIEW On the Ballot: New Orleans Property Tax Propositions, December 5, 2020 analyzes three propositions to replace several City of New Orleans property taxes that expire at the end of 2021. The replacement taxes would have the same combined rate of 5.82 mills as the existing taxes. However, the propositions would change the tax dedications. […]
OVERVIEW Conventional Wisdom: Pausing the Convention Hotel Deal to Assess the Pandemic’s Impact and Reduce Public Costs calls for reassessing the hotel project’s feasibility and reducing the cost of the public’s contributions.
Overview Questions for a New Parish Council is the second in a two-part 2019 Candidate Q&A Election Series providing the views of candidates for Jefferson Parish government on important public policy issues, such as tax dedications and contracting. Questions for a New Parish Council provides voters with the candidates’ answers to 16 questions developed from […]
Overview Questions for a New Parish President is the first in a two-part 2019 Candidate Q&A Election Series providing the views of candidates for Jefferson Parish president on important public policy issues affecting Parish government. Questions for a New Parish President provides voters with the candidates’ answers to 16 questions developed from BGR’s body of […]
Overview In this report, BGR compares Orleans Parish hotel taxes to best practices for taxation as well as state and national norms, focusing primarily on the share of revenue available for general municipal purposes.
Overview Today, BGR releases an open letter to the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The letter sets forth BGR’s concerns about a Convention Center consultant’s recent analysis of the feasibility and economic impact of a proposed 1,200-room convention hotel. The letter seeks to reconcile the consultant’s findings with the analysis in BGR’s July 19 […]
OVERVIEW In this report, BGR provides an analytical framework for evaluating the necessity and size of a private development team’s requested public contributions to design, build and operate a 1,200-room hotel attached to the New Orleans Ernest N Morial Convention Center. BGR estimates the proposed contributions – some of which would remain in place for 40 […]
OVERVIEW This report is the latest installment in BGR’s Candidate Q&A Election Series. The new report consolidates and reissues the responses of the newly elected City of New Orleans mayor and councilmembers who completed BGR’s surveys last fall on important issues facing City government. We encourage citizens to revisit the issues by reviewing the BGR […]
Overview For the October 14, 2017 primary elections in New Orleans, BGR provided voters with its 2017 Candidate Q&A Election Series. BGR submitted questions to all mayoral and City Council candidates on public safety, infrastructure and other important public policy issues facing the City of New Orleans government. BGR compiled the answers of the candidates who […]
Overview In Convention Center Bill Highlights Need to Rethink Local Taxation, BGR addresses a bill that would grant taxing authority to the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s economic development district. The release calls for a comprehensive re-evaluation of Orleans Parish taxes, with an eye toward aligning tax revenues with the city’s most pressing needs.
Overview BGR reviews a proposed property tax for the upkeep of public school facilities in New Orleans and 11 propositions to amend the Jefferson Parish charter that voters will decide on December 6, 2014. The charter propositions relate to: Modifying the Jefferson Parish Council’s authority to investigate parish affairs Limiting the outside employment of the […]
Overview In this release, BGR examines a 2013 legislative proposal to authorize a hotel assessment in New Orleans. For hotel guests, the assessment would be the functional equivalent of a new hotel tax.
Overview In On the Ballot: November 6, 2012, BGR examines three proposed constitutional amendments, two propositions pertaining to multiple parishes in the New Orleans area, a proposed change to the City of New Orleans charter and two local tax propositions. The three constitutional amendments would strengthen gun rights, provide an additional homestead exemption to spouses […]
Overview BGR examines charter amendments, tax propositions and state constitutional amendments on the October and November 2011 ballots. The October 22 ballot includes a Jefferson Parish charter amendment to establish the Office of Inspector General and an Ethics and Compliance Commission, as well as a related property tax to fund both entities. It also includes […]
Overview The Bureau of Governmental Research made presentations before the New Orleans Tax Fairness Commission on February 3, 2011 and February 23, 2011. The first presentation, Taxation in New Orleans, examines the City’s tax picture, with particular emphasis on property taxes. It provides an overview of the tax structure and discusses issues related to exemptions […]
Overview In this report entitled In the Private Interest: A Review of the Lake Forest Plaza TIF Proposal, BGR analyzes a tax increment financing (TIF) proposal by the owners of the former mall site in eastern New Orleans to use public funds to clear up debts on the site and redevelop it.
Overview On February 3, 2009, BGR sent a letter to Councilman Arnold Fielkow, Chairman of the New Orleans City Council’s Special Projects and Economic Development Committee, on the use and operation of the City’s Economic Development Fund. The letter recommends that the City abandon the current practice of directing grants to a handful of individual […]
Overview Look Before You Leap: Tax Increment Financing in Jefferson Parish provides an overview of tax increment financing (TIF) and describes four TIF districts proposed in Jefferson Parish. It also reviews the perceived benefits of TIF, as well as the pitfalls and potential abuses of the mechanism. It concludes with recommendations to the Jefferson Parish […]
Overview The City of New Orleans is working on a draft policy governing tax increment financing. BGR submitted comments on the February 2008 draft at the request of the City Council’s Special Development Projects and Economic Development Committee. The letter recommends that the City look to San Antonio’s TIF policy for guidance. In November, BGR […]
Overview The Bureau of Governmental Research analyzes four proposed amendments to the State constitution and one proposed amendment to the St. Tammany Parish home rule charter. The report covers amendments that will go before voters on October 20, 2007. Two of the proposed constitutional amendments deal with State supplemental pay for local public safety employees. The […]
Overview In the face of mounting developer requests for subsidies, this release calls for the City of New Orleans and the Industrial Development Board of New Orleans to stop approving subsidies until they have implemented promised policies and procedures.
Overview In Seeking Subsidies on Top of Subsidies, BGR raises concerns about requests for local property tax subsidies through the Industrial Development Board of New Orleans to housing developments that have already received subsidies through state and federal programs intended to support recovery following Hurricane Katrina. These include some redevelopments of public housing sites of […]
Overview In Protecting New Orleans’ Tax Base: Which PILOTs Should Fly? BGR addresses New Orleans’ system for handling property tax subsidies through the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) mechanism. This report comes at a time when requests for such subsidies to the Industrial Development Board of New Orleans are increasing.
Overview The New Orleans Saints, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, and the State of Louisiana are in the midst of negotiations that will determine whether the Saints remain in New Orleans. Sports subsidies present communities with difficult political and financial decisions. In this report, BGR seeks to provide policymakers and the public with background […]
Overview On the Right Track? New Orleans Economic Development in Perspective provides an overview of economic development expenditures in New Orleans to give citizens and government with a better understanding of their investment. The report takes a comprehensive look at the actors in New Orleans economic development in 2004, including: the City of New Orleans […]
Overview BGR studies the use of tax increment financing (TIF) in general for economic development and in New Orleans in particular, and makes recommendations.
Overview On February 2, 2002, the voters of New Orleans will consider a proposition to authorize the extension of the property tax millage for the New Orleans Business and Industrial District. The district has since been renamed the New Orleans Regional Business Park.
Overview In this report, BGR reviews the four proposed changes in the Louisiana constitution that voters will decide on November 7, 2000. The amendments would: (1) authorize the state to establish a corporation to be the state’s principal economic development organization (Louisiana Inc.) and to exempt it from civil service; (2) change state individual income […]
On April 4, 2024, BGR provided research-based guidance to New Orleans City Council leaders as they review economic development incentive programs. Our letter to the council president and vice president draws on our extensive body of work on property...
Spanish Plaza, the public space at the foot of Canal Street that New Orleans officials have long worried was neglected and underused, would get a new event space for musicians and other improvements through a new, tax-funded plan working...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s management is making a renewed push for a riverfront hotel, arguing that a strong rebound in the hospitality sector this year helps underpin the project’s prospects for success. The center on Monday made...
After more than a year of negotiations, the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority Board has a development agreement for River District Neighborhood Investors LLC to move forward on a $1 billion mixed-use development and entertainment district...
A headquarter hotel for the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, planned prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and shelved as a shutdown of the city began, will be revived for discussion at a Sept. 21 board meeting, according...
A preliminary agreement between the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the master developer selected to transform 39 acres upriver from the facility into a mixed-use neighborhood could be finalized in the next few months. Michael Sawaya, president of...
CINCINNATI — It would be difficult to prove the Cincinnati Bengals’ Super Bowl run had a positive impact on the local economy. But Chris Rose has receipts to prove its impact at Sinners & Saints Tavern on Riverside Drive....
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s plans for a riverfront hotel crumbled in October when its financial backers pulled out, citing worries about the long-term health of the city’s tourism industry amid the pandemic. Less than a year later,...
NEW ORLEANS – On March 23, the Bureau of Governmental Research kicked off its 2021 Breakfast Briefing Series with “The Vision for St. Tammany Parish,” a conversation among three parish leaders about balancing economic development and quality of life....
Yesterday, the Bureau of Governmental Research kicked off its 2021 Breakfast Briefing Series with “The Vision for St. Tammany Parish,” a conversation among three parish leaders about balancing economic development and quality of life. Speaking via Zoom webinar were...
Today, the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) hosted a virtual Breakfast Briefing featuring Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng. She discussed “Leading Jefferson Parish Today and Tomorrow: Reflections on 2020, Managing the Pandemic, and Future Priorities.” Following her presentation,...
We find ourselves in the uncomfortable, but necessarily so, position of having to start this week’s Commentary with an apology. In late November, Gambit endorsed Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s millage proposals, most notably her controversial library millage plan. This was...
The voters in Orleans Parish spoke quite clearly Saturday when they rejected three millage proposals that Mayor LaToya Cantrell strongly pushed. I suspect the mayor isn’t hearing what they’re saying, at least not yet. There were plenty of complaints...
In Orleans Parish, multiple property tax measures were on the Dec. 5 ballot. New Orleans overwhelmingly rejected Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s near-term fiscal strategy Saturday when they voted down three property tax dedication changes as well as a French Quarter...
New Orleans voters roundly defeated all three of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s tax proposals just days after she had warned that their failure could lead to the city implementing layoffs instead of the proposed furloughs that already figure to dramatically...
New Orleans voters on Saturday rejected a package of ballot propositions put forward by Mayor LaToya Cantrell that would have changed how the city spent roughly $23 million a year in property taxes. The plan would have cut roughly...
NEW ORLEANS — City leaders in New Orleans are calling on residents to approve three propositions on Saturday, which all deal with taxes set to expire at the end of next year. The first deals with funding infrastructure and...
ORLEANS PARISH, LA. — Orleans Parish voters will have to decide on three millage propositions at the polls. These propositions focus on infrastructure, housing and economic development, and early childhood education. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell says voters need...
NEW ORLEANS — Facing significant opposition to her proposed cut to public libraries and to separate tax increases for infrastructure and economic development, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Friday that if three propositions on Saturday’s ballot fail, she may have...
There are three parish-wide millage propositions on the ballot for Orleans Parish residents this weekend. One has to do with maintenance and infrastructure, another has to do with library funding and early childhood education. A third has to do...
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell threatened to lay off city employees unless voters extend three property taxes Saturday. If the millages are not renewed, she said during a virtual town hall meeting Thursday evening, City Hall would “immediately have...
In Orleans Parish, multiple property tax measures are on the Dec. 5 ballot. Proposition 1 funds infrastructure, including roadwork. A yes vote for Proposition 1 would replace two existing property taxes with a new special tax. The existing millage...
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Mayor LaToya Cantrell says there is a lot riding on three millages this Saturday. Proposition One is a renewal of a infrastructure and maintenance fund tax. Proposition Two is a restructured library tax which would...
Dr. Gabriel Morley, the director of the New Orleans Public Library, said at a Wednesday morning press conference that he had seen no written plan for how the library would adjust to a 40 percent budget cut being proposed...
NEW ORLEANS— In addition to deciding the next district attorney, voters in Orleans Parish will decide issues that affect their wallets. There are three propositions the city is asking voters to renew. In an exclusive interview with WGNO News,...
The future of New Orleans’ publicly funded childcare program is now tied to a controversial tax proposal that slashes the library’s budget by 40 percent. Proposition 2 reduces the existing property tax dedicated to the city’s public library system,...
Newell talks to Research Director Stephen Stuart about what voters will see on their ballots in the Dec 5 election. The discussion focuses on the New Orleans property tax propositions on the ballot.
In recent weeks, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has ramped up her campaign to convince voters to approve a plan to reallocate millions of dollars in property taxes, which will appear as three separate ballot propositions on the Dec....
New Orleans voters will be asked to reconfigure five soon-to-expire taxes into four new ones on the Dec. 5 ballot, leaving the overall tax rate the same but altering how much funding various city services and functions receive. The...
Mayor LaToya Cantrell is asking New Orleans voters to approve three interrelated millages on Dec. 5 that wouldn’t increase residents’ total tax bills, but would reallocate the proceeds for 20 years. The first would increase a combined streets and...
The diverse group of parents, librarians and concerned citizens that make up the Save Our Libraries coalition got a boost this week when the Bureau of Governmental Research added their voice to those opposing Proposition 2 which is on...
NEW ORLEANS — Early voting begins Friday across Louisiana for the Dec. 5 election, which includes the runoff for Orleans Parish District Attorney, as well as several judicial runoffs and important tax issues across the metro New Orleans area....
NEW ORLEANS – In a new report, the Bureau of Governmental Research – a private, nonprofit government watchdog – analyzes three separate propositions to replace several property taxes that will expire at the end of 2021. BGR said the...
In a report released Monday, the Bureau of Governmental Research, a local nonpartisan think tank, came out against a package of proposed property tax changes backed by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. Cantrell’s tax plan is being put to...
Today the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) releases On the Ballot: New Orleans Property Tax Propositions, December 5, 2020. The report is intended to help New Orleans voters make an informed decision on three separate propositions to replace several City...
Despite the Morial Convention Center’s pandemic-related money challenges, tourism chief Stephen Perry said during a Biz New Orleans podcast interview this week that it’s more important than ever to continue with the center’s planned improvements and developments. “We have...
The financial backer of the 1,200-room hotel at the upriver end of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center has pulled out of the project, putting the future of the development in doubt as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc...
The Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center has spent $49 million of its large cash reserves to cover deep budget shortfalls caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has ground the convention industry to a near-complete halt and starved...
At the request of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the New Orleans City Council on Thursday gave final approval to a long-anticipated 6.75 percent tax on short-term rental bookings. Thursday’s ordinance codifying the new tax into city law comes more than...
The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is facing unprecedented challenges. In April, a watchdog report critical of its hotel expansion plans cautioned against it in the near term. At its May board of commissioners meeting, the financial...
Today, BGR released the inaugural edition of PolicyWatch, a periodic newsletter that draws on BGR’s body of independent, nonpartisan research to address current public policy issues. This edition focuses on the City of New Orleans’ finances as it faces a...
The New Orleans City Council will consider a resolution to formally oppose the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s publicly subsidized hotel development at a Thursday meeting. The resolution, which appears in the agenda for the council’s meeting on Thursday,...
The governing board of the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center is pressing pause on behind-the-scenes negotiations with a private development team over a publicly subsidized, $702 million hotel development. The announcement followed weeks of criticism from public officials and...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s oversight board on Wednesday approved a donation of $1 million to support programs for “needy hospitality workers due to COVID-19,” which will be split equally between The United Way of Southeast Louisiana and...
The Communications Workers of America, the largest communications and media labor union in the country, is threatening to pull its August 2021 convention if the center doesn’t negotiate with local groups demanding the center provide $100 million in relief...
Three developers have been selected as finalists for a mixed-use entertainment district on 39 acres adjacent to a new headquarters hotel planned for the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The selected teams are The Domain Companies; River District Neighborhood...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center will delay plans to develop a new, 20-acre “entertainment district” on some of its upriver land, according to the new chairman of its oversight board, as the finances of the massive facility continue...
Over the past week, officials with the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center have sent a clear message: They will push forward a trio of interconnected developments worth over $1 billion, despite the known and unknown economic impacts...
A new 1,200-room hotel at the Morial Convention Center downtown is a risky proposal now that the coronavirus has disrupted New Orleans’ tourism industry and its major business meeting schedule. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the...
The Bureau of Governmental Research says a proposed headquarters hotel at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center needs reconsideration now that tourism and conventions have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. A report released Thursday by the public policy organization also...
The Bureau of Governmental Research, a public policy watchdog, has called on leaders of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to rethink plans to build a large hotel, saying it is an especially bad use of taxpayers’ money at...
Today, the Bureau of Governmental Research releases a report calling on the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to pause its 1,200-room convention headquarters hotel project to assess the coronavirus pandemic’s impacts on tourism and conventions, and to...
A coalition of 21 local unions, advocacy organizations and other groups are calling on the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center to release $100 million out of its unrestricted cash reserves to support hospitality industry workers who are...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center has presented a proposal to Mayor LaToya Cantrell to settle a yearlong dispute with the Regional Transit Authority over millions in tax dollars split between the two agencies and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation....
Large portions of Convention Center Boulevard are closed for the entire month of December. It’s just the latest in a series of intermittent closures on the Central Business District thoroughfare as the street is permanently converted from four lanes...
The governing body of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center set its 2020 budget at its Wednesday meeting. The Convention Center board was also expected to approve a contract with Populous, a Missouri-based architecture firm, to be...
On Friday, The New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, a public municipal entity, provided some of the first details into what it will look like once the majority of its staff, mission and funding are absorbed by the private nonprofit...
One of the reasons you love Think504 is that we keep you informed about important political and civic decisions you have to make. So when you go into the voting booth (Early voting Nov 2-9 Election Day Nov 16) to elect...
The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center reached a deal last week with a consortium of private developers to build a new 1,200-room hotel on the center’s upriver side, with public subsidies amounting to an estimated $114 million,...
At a public meeting Monday night, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s governing body touted its plans for a $557 million hotel as a project that would bring jobs and tourism dollars to the city. But a few residents...
Today BGR releases Questions for a New Parish Council, the second in a two-part report series providing the views of candidates for Jefferson Parish government on important public policy issues. Yesterday, BGR released the responses of the candidates for...
Today BGR releases Questions for a New Parish President, the first in a two-part series of reports providing the views of candidates for Jefferson Parish government on important public policy issues. Tomorrow, BGR will release the responses of the...
The hospitality industry in New Orleans brings in $8.7 billion per year, according to a report commissioned by the city in 2018. But while the industry thrives, many of the city’s cooks, servers and bartenders must walk a financial tightrope trying...
The controversial 1,200-room hotel proposed for the upriver end of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center passed a major milestone on Friday, when a hard-fought legislative bill laying out the terms of the project was signed by Gov. John Bel...
New Orleans will receive tens of millions of dollars to replace antiquated sewage pipes, fix faulty drainage pumps and mend pothole-filled roads, mostly by levying higher taxes on visitors, after the state Senate on Sunday gave final approval to...
For generations, the mayor of New Orleans was supposed to be a native, a smooth political operator and, it almost goes without saying, a man. In her history-making 2017 campaign, Mayor LaToya Cantrell bet that New Orleans was ready...
The city of New Orleans’ crumbling infrastructure will receive an infusion of tens of millions of dollars under a deal announced Monday by Gov. John Bel Edwards and Mayor LaToya Cantrell after weeks of hard-fought negotiations between their aides...
The closing of a deal to secure millions of dollars in immediate and continuing money for the city’s drainage infrastructure and the Sewerage & Water Board appears imminent for Mayor LaToya Cantrell. The negotiations in some respects could put more money in the hands of the...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, a major player in the New Orleans tourism industry, is sitting on some $200 million in tax money — funds generated for a center expansion that was scrapped after Hurricane Katrina. Some critics, including...
America faces a crisis at home more urgent than any before — other than Pearl Harbor and 9/11. That crisis is our crumbling and badly managed infrastructure. Some may call me an alarmist, but I don’t expect many New Orleanians...
New Orleans developer and hotelier Joe Jaeger announced Saturday that he is withdrawing from the team seeking to build a heavily subsidized and thus controversial hotel at the upriver end of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Earlier in...
In a hardball move against the hospitality industry, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell took her fight for tourism tax dollars to the Louisiana Legislature Monday, with members of her administration testifying in favor of a series of bills to...
Hear WWL Radio’s Tommy Tucker talk with Amy Glovinsky, President/CEO BGR (Bureau of Governmental Research), about the City’s efforts to get a greater share of the tax revenue from the tourism industry. Click here to read BGR’s report on...
The contentious debate over how to use New Orleans tourism tax dollars that has rumbled along largely behind closed doors spilled out in public Wednesday at The New Orleans Advocate’s tourism summit. A high-level panel that included Mayor LaToya...
An expert panel on tourism brought together a host of important industries and ideas Tuesday morning in downtown New Orleans. The forum, hosted at The New Orleans Advocate, delved into several subjects integral to the city’s tourism future and...
It’s 2019, but looking at some of the city’s old and antiquated infrastructure, it doesn’t feel like it. We have a pumping system that includes parts that are over a hundred years old, and a water and sewer system...
Build it and they will come. That’s the rosy forecast by officials from the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, who are in the beginning stages of a $1.1 billion spending plan that they say will bring hordes of...
Less than a month away from the start of the 2019 legislative session, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s legislative agenda is being shaped by her push to divert millions of tax dollars from state-sponsored tourism and sports agencies to helping meet New...
Two groups — one created by the mayor and the governor, the other consisting of tourism and business leaders working behind the scenes — are zeroing in on sources of money that could help address the New Orleans Sewerage & Water...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Orleans Parish tax assessor says he’s told convention center officials that a $558 million hotel they’re proposing probably would not be exempt from property taxes — something some center board members say is essential....
Community activism is alive and well in New Orleans at the grassroot level. One group, The New Orleans Peoples’ Assembly (NOPA), is in the vanguard of addressing social injustice and human rights violations by people with both political and...
With the Louisiana Legislature convening in exactly one month, the first proposals focused on raising more money for New Orleans road and Sewerage & Water Board repairs have begun to take shape. The chances for major success, though, appear slim at this point,...
Erroll Williams, the Orleans Parish tax assessor, is complicating plans for a hotel that officials of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center want to build with tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Williams told Convention Center officials...
A respected investment banker has a plan that he says could save the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center hundreds of millions of dollars in its controversial deal to build a 1,200-room hotel. So far, the response from the center’s...
This year agencies in New Orleans charged with overseeing the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, running the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and promoting tourism in the city will do so with the help of more than $160 million in tax dollars....
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has signaled she wants $75 million for city infrastructure repairs straight from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s reserve account, tapping money from hotel tax revenues that Gov. John Bel Edwards, key state lawmakers and tourism industry leaders have said should be...
What was originally meant to be a temporary move to ease the construction of the Superdome may still be costing the city an estimated $12 million dollars in 2019, according to a recent report. A recent report from the...
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Mayor LaToya Cantrell wants millions of dollars from the Convention Center and said the city is not getting its fair share of hotel tax money, when compared with other major cities. “I have recommended a...
The old idiom that nothing is certain but death and taxes remains true, with the possible addition of Roger Goodell’s loathing of the Saints to round out the list. The certainty surrounding taxes, however, is in the paying of...
Amy Glovinsky and Paul Rioux of the Bureau of Governmental Research joined Newell to talk about the tourism dollar to the state budget.
New Orleans City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer is calling for an end to a longtime arrangement that diverts about half of the Regional Transit Authority’s hotel tax revenues to the tourism industry. A one-percent sales tax — approved in...
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -The City of New Orleans wants to spread the wealth from hotel tax funding. The Bureau of Governmental Research will share its findings Tuesday on how the tax money could be used to improve city services....
Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s effort to get more of New Orleans’ hotel-motel taxes into the city’s general fund got a boost when the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR), a nonpartisan good government group, made the case that the city should increase hotel-motel...
The Bureau of Governmental Research has waded into the big-dollar tax dispute between Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the tourism industry with a recommendation that would deliver more dollars to the city of New Orleans – as Cantrell is seeking....
NEW ORLEANS The New Orleans government’s share of taxes from hotel rooms in the tourism-dependent city should increase by more than $12 million a year, an independent research group said in a report released Wednesday. Reviving a debate involving city...
Restoring a 1 percent sales tax on New Orleans hotels would be a step too much for the city’s tourism industry to bear, leading industry representatives said Wednesday (Jan. 30), responding to a new watchdog report that called for the extra...
A new report by a nonprofit group says the city of New Orleans should get to keep more tax dollars then it’s currently getting. That report came from the Bureau of Governmental Research. View video here.
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – A leading local research group published a comprehensive report on New Orleans hotel-motel taxes, which shows the city lagging far behind when it comes to using hotel tax revenues to help fund city services. Since...
A new report from the Bureau of Governmental Research released on Wednesday found a lack of accountability and transparency when it comes to New Orleans hotel tax revenue, and recommended that the city get at least $12 million more per year,...
A one-percent tax on New Orleans hotel sales should return to city coffers, as it was decades ago before that local tax was halted to let the state collect its own tax revenue to build the Superdome, says a new report...
The Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, the state entity with oversight of Mercedes-Benz Superdome and Smoothie King Center, raked in an additional $2.6 million in hotel taxes in 2017, pushing its revenue from tourist-related taxes to a record high,...
Amid new pressure from unions and an ongoing debate over whether the city’s hospitality and tourism industry is doing enough to support its mostly low-wage workers, a local nonprofit research group has released a report estimating that the industry’s...
Facing political pressure to share some of their hotel tax revenue with city agencies, New Orleans tourism leaders on Thursday proposed an alternative: a new hotel tax that would generate $6.7 million a year for municipal infrastructure projects. But...
New Orleans hospitality industry and business representatives are pitching a plan to raise $81 million in one-time money to plan and undertake fixes to drainage and other city infrastructure. Mayor LaToya Cantrell panned the proposal shortly after it was made public...
As negotiations continue behind the scenes over the terms of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s proposed 1,200-room high-rise Omni Hotel, the city’s property tax assessor says he is skeptical that the $557.5 million project would qualify for the...
Governor John Bel Edwards presented at a BGR Breakfast Briefing on State of Louisiana priorities of local importance. BGR expresses its appreciation to Governor Edwards and to our attendees for their presence and participation in the Q&A that followed...
A plan by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell to ask state lawmakers to shift some hotel taxes from tourism to the ailing infrastructure of the Sewerage & Water Board was dealt a major, and likely fatal, blow on Tuesday...
The would-be developers of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s proposed $557.5 million, 1,200-room Omni Hotel have released the first design draft of the project’s exterior. Negotiations are ongoing and expected to wrap up by early 2019 between the New Orleans...
The developer of a proposed 1,200-room Ernest N. Morial Convention Center hotel has released a rendering of the structure, a $558 million addition to the facility along the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Dallas-based Matthews Southwest Hospitality is seeking...
Let New Orleans drown in water and red ink or stop giving special interests money to finance their real-life Monopoly game? It should be a no-brainer for Louisiana lawmakers. Earlier this month, Mayor LaToya Cantrell executed a campaign promise...
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell built her political career by being a disruptor, and she won election with 60 percent of the vote, so clearly that’s a quality her constituents wanted in their new leader. Her disruptive side was...
Louisiana state Senate President John Alario on Friday threw cold water on Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s tentative plan to try to shift tax revenue away from local tourism agencies to help pay for improving New Orleans’ antiquated drainage, water and sewerage systems....
When Mayor LaToya Cantrell addressed the Bureau of Governmental Research on Tuesday, she was quick to talk about her desire to add currently exempt property to the tax rolls while also re-distributing other tax dollars that are generated in...
I read with interest a recent article in The Advocate in which a group that includes Joe Jaeger is asking for large subsidies to build a 1,200-room hotel next to the Morial Convention Center, for which the Bureau of...
The Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center’s proposal to build a 1,200-room hotel on its property is drawing scrutiny from a good government watchdog group, which questions why the project is so reliant on public support in the...
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -The Bureau of Governmental Research, a watchdog group released an open-letter it sent to the New Orleans Convention Center Thursday which raises questions about the accuracy of a consultant’s analysis for a controversial hotel project the...
A local government watchdog offered a detailed rebuttal to arguments that it’s necessary for developers of a $558 million hotel project to receive public subsidies that will total hundreds of millions of dollars. The nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research...
The Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) releases an open letter to the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The letter sets forth BGR’s concerns about a Convention Center consultant’s recent analysis of the feasibility and economic impact of a proposed 1,200-room convention...
Convention Center officials on Wednesday (Aug. 22) released an economic impact study that showed a proposed 1,200-room Convention Center hotel would have an estimated $282 million economic impact. The study also shows the Convention Center hotel would generate about...
Hoping to counteract mounting criticism over plans to build a publicly subsidized 1,200-room hotel, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center officials on Wednesday endorsed a consultant’s view of the project’s potential benefits, which he estimated would be worth $282 million in...
NEW ORLEANS, LA (WVUE) – Residents packed the Convention Center board meeting Wednesday (Aug. 22) to voice their opinions on a multi-million-dollar hotel project proposed for the lot next to the facility. However, proponents say the 1,200-room hotel would...
NEW ORLEANS, LA (WVUE) – Leaders from the Convention Center are set to make their case for a proposed hotel on the river. It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in public money. The Convention center argues that...
The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Board would really like to build a hotel attached to the Convention Center — so badly it wants taxpayers to pay for much of it. Last month, the nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research...
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is voicing opposition to a proposal to build a 1,200-room hotel attached to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center that would include a $41 million contribution from the Convention Center. Cantrell’s letter comes nearly a month...
NEW ORLEANS, LA (WVUE) – Mayor Latoya Cantrell is asking the Convention Center board to “defer all action” on a controversial plan to use hundreds of millions of public dollars to fund a new hotel. The mayor’s request comes just one month...
In the opening salvo in what could become a lengthy negotiation over whether the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center moves forward with its plans to build a high-rise hotel, Mayor LaToya Cantrell has expressed “grave concerns” about the large public subsidies...
A $557 million hotel proposed for the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center needs a thorough evaluation of the project’s need and financial details before an approval vote possibly late next month, according to a report released Thursday (July 19)...
Today, the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) releases Public Contributions to Convention Center Hotel Demand Scrutiny. The report provides an analytical framework for evaluating the necessity and size of a private development team’s requested public contributions to design, build and operate a...
A local government watchdog group is urging officials to take a more critical look at a request for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public subsidies for a proposed high-rise hotel adjacent to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The nonpartisan...
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center officials are back at the negotiating table, hoping to finally realize their dream of building a high-rise anchor hotel and, in time, a retail and entertainment complex on a vacant 47-acre tract the center purchased nearly...
Second time’s the charm. That’s what members of the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority hope as they return to the negotiating table with a team of developers who have proposed building a $558 million, 1,200-room Omni Hotel at an...
After years of stalled negotiations, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center officials have returned to the drawing board as they seek ways to kick-start a potentially $1.5 billion riverfront development that would include a 1,200-room hotel, retail space, restaurants and entertainment...
Jerry Bologna (JEDCO President & CEO) and Robert Edgecombe (GCR, Inc. Urban Planner and Consultant) spoke at a BGR Breakfast Briefing in Jefferson Parish. This Breakfast Briefing was sponsored by IBERIABANK. Edgecombe presented Jefferson Parish demographic trends. Bologna followed with...
Released in 2015, BGR’s report The $1 Billion Question: Do the Tax Dedications in New Orleans Make Sense? serves as a critical fact base for Lee Zurik’s Finding the Funds. The investigative series looks into Convention Center taxes. For BGR’s complete analysis,...
