The new Music Museum of New Orleans is being touted as the cultural centerpiece of the River District development and received $2 million in state funding last month, but the project is still struggling to secure the $160 million it needs to make it a reality.
The venue, which backers call the Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience, was one of two cultural hubs at the center of the new $1 billion neighborhood when the River District Consortium, led by local developer Louis Lauricella, won the master developer contract from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center a little over three years ago.
Over the next decade, the River District plans to build an entirely new “entertainment-focused” neighborhood on roughly 39 acres of land owned by the Convention Center, as well as adjacent projects on privately owned land. The district's winning plan highlights the creation of more than 1,000 new housing units, as well as amenities such as a music heritage space and Louisiana's first civil rights museum.
The entire development will require hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, including about $22 million in property tax abatements for Shell Oil's new office building, as well as about $120 million in reinvestment of sales taxes projected to be generated over the next 30 years to cover construction and development costs.
An exterior rendering of the proposed $160 million, 120,000-square-foot Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience Museum in New Orleans' River District.
Photo provided
The River District also secured significant federal funding earlier this month for the first 220 housing units. Project leaders said the majority of the $95 million cost to build those units will come from public funds.
While River District Consortium and Convention Center leaders have directly lobbied state and local officials for public support for housing subsidies, a $129 million Shell office tower and a new $47 million Topgolf entertainment facility, they have had little direct involvement in efforts to secure financial support for the Music and Heritage or Civil Rights museums.
The River District declined to comment on its funding efforts for the museum.
A rendering of the proposed lobby for the Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience Museum.
Photo provided
The convention center's CEO and president, Michael Sawaya, was one of 15 business leaders and local and state politicians who signed a letter to public officials expressing support for the music museum, but he declined to comment on the museum's status after meeting with museum backers last week.
The museum failed to secure the $75 million in state funding it sought during the last two legislative sessions. The $2 million allocated in June was meant to cover “planning and development” costs, but lawmakers told museum backers to scale back their request to under $45 million, according to Chris Beary, the developer who has led the project for the past four years.
Last year, the state provided $2 million to open a civil rights “Inaugural Experience” exhibit in a 5,000-square-foot space in the convention center. Politicians promised at the time to build a full-scale museum, and Michael McKnight, deputy secretary of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, drafted a capital outlay proposal of $35 million to fund a 50,000-square-foot museum in next year's budget, public documents show.
A rendering of the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum, the River District Consortium's first proposal to win the master development agreement.
But Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who oversees the state's 10 museums, including the civil rights “Inaugural Experience,” said there's no guarantee the museums will get new funding in the next legislative session amid a $500 million budget deficit.
“We may have a funding shortfall next year,” Nungesser said Friday. “It depends on how we resolve the budget shortfall, so we won't know until we get closer.”
“It depends on what you prioritize,” Beary said, noting that state budgets are always tight. “We created American musical history in New Orleans, and I think it's our obligation to honor that history, not to mention the fact that the museum can fund itself.”
Supporters of the museum point to other national music museums that were initially supported with public funds and have since provided major economic benefits to their cities.
Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which opened in 1995, has more than paid off the city for its $92 million construction costs, designed by I.M. Pei, an economic study showed. The institution brings in about $200 million in revenue annually. Beary argued that Seattle's MoPOP and Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame are other examples of the impact music museums can have on the River District and New Orleans.
Maurice McGee, 70, center, walks through the opening portion of a museum commemorating Louisiana's role in the civil rights movement at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com)
Staff photo: Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
In fact, New Orleans was one of the leading candidates for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the early 1990s, according to music historian Bob Santelli, curatorial consultant for the New Orleans Project. A USA Today poll at the time named Memphis and New Orleans as the public's two most popular locations, but it was Cleveland that committed public funds to build it, Santelli noted.
Santelli said New Orleans was also a front-runner for the location of the Grammy museum, but the museum opened in Los Angeles in 2008.
“There was no support at all in Louisiana,” Santelli said.
If the River District Music Museum can secure the $45 million from the state, Beary said it could raise another $60 million from revenue bonds secured by sales taxes expected to be generated over the next 30 years. Still, it would need $20 million from federal funds such as the Community Development Block Grant Pool and another $40 million from private sources.
Planning Stage
Beary's group has used the money it has raised so far (including $1 million from the city and $1.5 million from private sources) to hire local architecture firm Escue Dumez Ripple to create a concept plan, consultants like Santelli, and economic consultant EconConsult to write a report stating that the museum could generate $150 million in annual economic impact for the city.
Santelli argues that the cultural value of museums is even more compelling than their economic value.
“Louisiana is one of the essential states in American music culture,” said Santelli, who has led 10 music museum projects across the country, including serving as founding executive director of the 32,000-square-foot Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.
“I want to build this building in the worst way possible,” he said. “It's the last great music museum that hasn't been built yet.”
Beary said he was encouraged by state lawmakers' support for the revised funding plan, but he's not sure whether the Music Museum development team will be able to keep up the momentum if the plan fails again next year.
“I don't know when they're going to lose interest in this because the state won't provide the funding,” he said.
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