Developers and New Orleans officials have made a breakthrough in talks over the former Six Flags amusement park, more than a year after Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration selected Bayou Phoenix to build a water park, hotel and sports complex with retail and other amenities. That is welcome news for New Orleans East residents, after the deal looked close to dead late last year.

People involved in the deal said the parties have agreed on the terms of a development pact establishing the relationship between Bayou Phoenix and the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, which is to serve as landlord. Once that agreement is signed, Bayou Phoenix is expected to seek the authority’s approval for a master plan, and a separate lease agreement would follow.

It is still not exactly clear when developers will gain access to the 227-acre site and begin construction, and a grand opening is years away. The redevelopment authority will ask Bayou Phoenix to present the master plan at a community forum before approving it, said Jeff Schwartz, the Cantrell administration’s economic development director.

“Presuming it’s in line with what they proposed and, obviously, there’s community support, it should be a fairly straightforward process,” Schwartz said.

Bayou Phoenix leader Troy Henry said the group’s master plan is complete, although it is not clear whether the redevelopment authority has reviewed the plan nor what the agency’s conditions are for greenlighting it. The agency’s executive director, Brenda Breaux, would not comment on negotiations but said it “appears that we are moving closer to an agreement that is palatable for the developer, NORA and the community.”

Optimism

Such optimism is a sharp turnaround from November, when relations were outwardly strained and disagreements appeared intractable. At that point, Henry said City Hall and the redevelopment authority were demanding too much right of refusal over tenant selection, while public officials said Henry was misrepresenting their position and refusing necessary accountability measures.

“We have much more reasonable approvals and much more reasonable termination provisions,” Henry said Monday. “I was pleased to see that we’re able to reach a somewhat of a meeting of the minds and make some progress.”

Schwartz said Bayou Phoenix’s agreement to certain sublease provisions for businesses that will operate at the site – local hiring requirements, for example – was a key assurance for public officials working on the deal.

“Where we were previously hung up was how to structure it such that the developer felt like they had the clear path to doing a project that wasn’t going to get clouded by politics and the like,” Schwartz said. “But as public agencies, we have not just the desire but the legal mandate to ensure that public benefit is being created.”

Bureaucratic tangles

The old theme park has been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina. City Hall chose Bayou Phoenix to redevelop it in October 2021, after a string of other proposals fell apart over the previous decade. Bureaucratic tangling over site ownership is part of the reason it has taken 15 months to come this close to a basic agreement with the developer.

The site is currently owned by the Industrial Development Board, a standalone city agency with barebones staff. It agreed to take the title in 2009 while City Hall led redevelopment efforts. The board, which primarily approves development incentives, has long been eager to dispose of the site.

The redevelopment authority, a state agency with a staff of about 30 that undertakes redevelopment projects across New Orleans, agreed to take the property, but the terms of a land transfer weren’t agreed upon until August. The agency still hasn’t signed the land transfer, preferring to do so at the same time as the development agreement.

That angered Industrial Development Board members at the board’s meeting Tuesday.

“We executed it from our side. It was all done in good faith. And now we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting,” member David Thompson said.

Breaux did not respond to a followup email concerning the transfer agreement.