The New Orleans City Council has approved a rezoning request to allow a new Omni Hotel to be built in the Warehouse District.
The council unanimously approved the zoning change after meeting with the city's economic development district board this afternoon. The move would allow construction of the Omni on the land currently occupied by the Sugar Mill.
The council still must approve an ordinance giving the project the green light before construction can begin. If the council approves such an ordinance, the new Omni would serve as the Morial Convention Center's headquarters hotel. It would be the first large-scale hotel built in the Crescent City since 1982.
Council members were concerned that the payment-in-lieu-of-tax that the Omni would pay the city did not provide enough benefit for the city and its people. During today's city council meeting, council president J. P. Morrell and attorney Mike Sherman, who attended the meeting to represent the hotel's developers, engaged in a war of words.
"Omni's commitment is not to come here an ask to pay $1 or a few hundred thousand dollars but to pay full property taxes according to its competitive set of hotels," Sherman said.
"You and the people you represent did not want to pay school board property tax, and that is something that we had to fight to get done," Morrell responded, receiving cheers from opponents of the project. "While you sit up here and pat yourself on the back, there is work being done to make sure this city is treated properly in this transaction, and you were not a part of it."
After the council returned from its recess to attend the economic development district meeting, Morrell said the council wanted to make sure there is an element of trust between the city and the hotel's developers.
"When you look at the overall different instances in which the city will interact with this process, we have to start on an appropriate, equal footing, and what we saw today at the separate meeting was the city council taking that step forward to be on better, equal footing," Morrell said. "We certainly want and expect there to be an element of trust. What you saw today and why we're doing this vote after that PILOT was put in a better context is because this is a situation where, based upon what had been happening, it was not just trust but trust but verify."
