News Roundup

$60M Tracage Condo Project Spawns Lawsuit

City Business
by Christian Moises Associate Editor

NEW ORLEANS — Plans for the estimated $60-million Tracage condominium project are “temporarily on hold” because of a lawsuit challenging the tower, project developers said.

“We’ve been trying to work through that situation and hoped it would have come and gone, but it has not,” said Stephen King, vice president of Spectrum Capital, a partner in Tracage.

Joshua Rubenstein, an attorney with Forman Perry Watkins Krutz and Tardy and a resident of Lengsfield Lofts, which is located next to the Tracage property, has filed a lawsuit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court in regards to zoning irregularities and specific issues with the setback on the property.

Rubenstein, who had no comment, expressed concern in an Aug. 21, 2006, CityBusiness story, saying at the time that he was strongly considering suing the city and Tracage. At issue was Tracage obscuring views from his condo.

“This is about the future of the Warehouse District and whether it is going to continue to be four- and five-story residences or whether it’s going to be a series of Miami South Beach towers. If I wanted to live in South Beach I would have moved there,” Rubenstein said in the 2006 story.

King said Specturm is committed to moving forward with the project.

“As far as (a timeframe), my expectation is within the next 30 to 60 days, we should have this resolved,” he said.

At that time, King said, developers would pick back where they were last fall, which was in the middle of converting reservations for units into hard contracts.

“I’m not sure how long that would take, but I envision we would pick the process back up, with construction commencing this fall,” King said.

Plans for the 24-story, 136-unit project at the intersection of Annunciation and John Churchill Chase streets haven’t changed much, King said.

Tracage is a joint venture between Jackson, Miss.-based Spectrum and Isis Development Group of New Orleans. The development team involves Spectrum, Yates Construction, Foil Wyatt Architects and Planners and Trapolin Architects.