The owners of the Market Street Power Plant have revived a plan to turn the riverfront property into a mid-sized New Orleans music venue, a project that could offer a needed boost to the River District neighborhood taking shape near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
ASM Global, the multinational venue-management firm that runs the Caesars Superdome, has a “verbal agreement” with the former power plant’s owners to lease and then operate a 5,000-seat indoor arena once it is built there, Doug Thornton, head of North American venues for ASM, said in an interview last week. And BRG Hospitality, the New Orleans-based restaurant company formerly known as Besh Restaurant Group, has also been developing plans for various food offerings at the site, according to BRG co-founder Octavio Mantilla.
Agreements between the firms and property owners Louis Lauricella, Brian Gibbs and Dallas-based Cypress Equities haven’t been finalized. No timeline has been shared publicly, and Thornton cautioned that there are still many pieces that need to fall into place before they would be ready to open doors to concertgoers.
But the involvement of two of New Orleans’ biggest names in hospitality is the first sign in years that the former power plant could get a new life as part of the mixed-use neighborhood of housing, offices, museums and entertainment venues developers are planning for the area.
“We strongly believe in the projects happening or contemplated along the Riverfront,” Mantilla said via email, noting that BRG is just a few weeks from opening Delacroix, a 100-seat waterfront restaurant and oyster bar that is near completion at Spanish Plaza.
“For the past couple of years, we have also been deeply involved with the development of the Market Street Power Plant, a very complicated project that has a long way to go to reach fruition,” he said, adding that BRG is “very excited to be an integral part of this exciting project, to work with ASM Global and the development team to help return the Power Plant back into commerce after more than a half-century of dormancy.”…