The PRC is concerned about a proposed 7-story hotel planned for the Faubourg Marigny – a project that wants to pass the allowable 50-foot height limit by a whopping 24 feet in this low-rise, residential historic district. Current zoning allows a hotel at this location, in the 600 block of Elysian Fields Avenue, but in addition to a 24-foot height variance the project requires a conditional use permit since the hotel is greater than 10,000 square feet in floor area. The City Planning Commission staff is recommending the New Orleans City Council deny the application, citing compatibility in scale as a primary issue, and the PRC agrees with this finding.
The owner is 621 Elysian Fields Group, whose registered officers live in Baton Rouge and Metairie. A 2023 article in the Times-Picayune/Advocate reported that the hotel would be a Courtyard by Marriott, although recent plans done by Coleman Partners Architects describes the project as a “Classic Upscale Hotel” named The Elysian.
These recent plans submitted to the City Planning Commission include a set-back of the fourth through seventh floors of the hotel that does little to soften the impact of the oversized building, which looms mere inches from neighboring one-story buildings. As the Faubourg Marigny Historic District is primarily composed of residential shotguns and Creole cottages, the current proposal is entirely out of scale with its surroundings. A project of this size could result in several concerning detrimental impacts to the neighborhood: a decline in property values, increased traffic issues, and diminished residential quality of life, not to mention harm to the architectural and historic integrity of the Marigny, one of the city’s earliest suburbs.
For some, this proposal may recall the Christopher Inn, which was constructed in 1970 on Washington Square Park. Although the project served a worthy and necessary purpose as low-income housing for the elderly, the architectural character, style, height, and scale contrasted so strongly with the neighborhood that it spurred the creation of the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association in 1974.
The PRC is alarmed by the current proposal’s lack of consideration for the historic nature of the area, and we encourage the City Planning Commission to follow the staff report and recommend denial of the conditional use and height waivers.
The New Orleans City Planning Commission will hear the application on Dec. 10, before making a recommendation to the New Orleans City Council. Earlier iterations of the proposal were reviewed by the Historic District Landmarks Commission’s Architectural Review Committee, but no approvals have been granted yet. After the City Planning meeting, the applicant will still need to return to the ARC to review the form and massing of the building, although they will have no say over the scale of the project if the conditional use and height variance get approved.
Rendering courtesy of Coleman Partners Architects
Rendering courtesy of Coleman Partners Architects
Rendering courtesy of Coleman Partners Architects
Rendering courtesy of Coleman Partners Architects
Rendering courtesy of Coleman Partners Architects
