The head of New Orleans’ Downtown Development District, a state agency that oversees some of the security, beautification and economic development efforts in parts of the Central Business and Warehouse districts, has resigned to take up a similar job in Austin, Texas.
Davon Barbour announced Wednesday that he would be leaving the DDD, as it is known, at the end of February to become CEO of the Downtown Austin Alliance.
Barbour has been the CEO of the DDD, which has an annual budget of about $10 million, since December, 2021, when he replaced Kurt Weigle, who’d been in the job for nearly two decades.
Hunting for new head
The DDD—which is bounded by Iberville Street, the Pontchartrain Expressway, Claiborne Avenue and the Mississippi River—was created in 1974 as an independent state entity. It is funded by a millage on commercial properties in the district to pay for things like additional security, lighting, promotional events and some subsidies for improvements to business premises. It is widely credited as the first business improvement district in the country…