News Roundup

In the Neighborhood: Mid-City, Canal and Carrollton

City Business
By Stephen Stuart
May 13, 2002

Val Dansereau says he assembled a group of investors to buy a chunk of land at the corner of Canal and Carrollton more in hopes of saving historic buildings than the drive to make a dollar. Considering the investors had only 30 days to put the deal together, Dansereau says he is surprised that it looks like the venture will make a profit.

“We had to do it to protect the neighborhood,” he says. “We had to buy it or all of the buildings were going to be torn down.”

The investors thought they would be lucky to break even. But rising rents for commercial property in Mid-City helped transform an act of preservation into a shrewd business deal, Dansereau says.

Dansereau formed a company called CSC Investments to buy the property for $950,000. When renovations are completed, the cost will rise to about $2.5 million, he says.

The investors have already renovated a two-story home that fronts Canal Street. They rented out the lower floor to an oral surgeon and the upper floor to a consulting firm specializing in minority hiring.

A small brick building with green roof tiles that fronts Carrollton will soon become a Flying Burrito Restaurant, says Dansereau. There are no tenants yet for two other buildings, an old post office and a former bar, on sites fronting Canal Street.

The corner of Carrollton and Canal has been a source of contention among preservationists and developers for years. Tensions rose when preservationists got wind of a plan to tear down the buildings to put up a Shell gas station on the corner, where 58,000 cars pass every day.

Dansereau, who owns the Carrollton reception hall next to the corner, believed the development would bring in a new wave of crime and ugliness to the neighborhood. Plans for the gas station were dashed, largely at the insistence of state Rep. Peppi Bruneau.

“I thought a gas station would have absolutely ruined the neighborhood,” says Bruneau. “There would have been lights on all night, all types of people there all night. It’s just not conducive to a residential neighborhood.”

Later, it appeared that a retail development, anchored by a video store, was destined for the property.

That proposal would also have required knocking down the buildings. After encountering resistance for plans to build a strip mall there, the developer agreed to change the design so the new building would fit in with the neighborhood, says Howell Crosby, who represented Mid-City on the City Council at the time.

“What he had originally could have been plunked down anywhere else in the United States,” Crosby says. But Ripley compromised, agreeing to bring the same sort of architectural flair that he incorporated at a similar development at Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue.

Crosby concedes it wasn’t the best of circumstances for the corner, but he thought it was important to put the property back into use.

When Dansereau and other preservationists continued to fight the project, Ripley agreed to withdraw his development proposal if Dansereau would put up the money to buy and renovate it. Crosby applauds Ripley’s decision. “He gave up lots of money on that development to give them the deal,” he says.

Dansereau, who will soon become president of the Preservation Resource Center, says he pursued the project because he thought it was the only way to save the buildings. But he thinks it sets a bad precedent for historic preservation in the city. “When there are laws on the books, you shouldn’t have to ask citizens to buy property to save their neighborhood,” he says.

However, Crosby hopes the development will lead the way for a new breed of developers who see that there is money to be made in historic restoration.

“I hope Val is very successful because it will encourage other people to do the same thing,” Crosby says. “The right thing for the neighborhood is to find alternative uses for old buildings.”

05/13/2002 - Vol. 93 - Issue 98 - Page 11