About the Program
The Preservation Resource Center’s Operation Comeback started in 1987 as a focused effort to revitalize the Lower Garden District. Operation Comeback expanded to work in historic neighborhoods throughout the city, including the river side of Magazine St. in Uptown and in Holy Cross district in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Operation Comeback buys, then renovates and sells, modest old homes which many consider hopeless. The homes are obtained in a number of different ways, but each is vacant when purchased; it is not uncommon for the homes to have been abandoned for 10, 15, 20 years–or more.
The homes are sold to owner-occupants who help stabilize historic New Orleans neighborhoods. The homes are updated to reflect modern lifestyles and to meet building code, but are customized and often employ salvage historic elements, either found at the home or in PRC’s Salvage Store.
Operation Comeback staff shares decades of experience fixing up old homes by providing consultations and at PRC workshops (First Time Homebuyer and First Time Renovator Training).