Tulane University is taking over the long-stalled effort to turn the former Charity Hospital in downtown New Orleans into a hub of education, medical research and apartments, university officials said Tuesday, a key milestone in an ambitious redevelopment project that has bedeviled city leaders for nearly two decades.
Under an agreement between Tulane and 1532 Tulane Holdco, the consortium selected in 2018 to oversee the $300 million project, Tulane will be responsible for restoring the 90-year-old former hospital and turning roughly two-thirds of it into the new home of the Tulane Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Tulane Innovation Institute.
1532 Tulane Holdco will convert one-third of the structure into apartments that will likely serve the Tulane and broader biomedical communities.
The deal, which is being finalized, needs to clear several hurdles. And while it could fall through, it offers the best hope in years that the hulking former hospital on Tulane Avenue that never reopened after Hurricane Katrina may see life again…