Business View Magazine | February 2021

192 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021 T here are lots of “big” things about New Orleans, Louisiana that are hard to ignore, from the outrageous Mardi Gras celebrations to the eye-catching ironwork on the elegant buildings flanking Jackson Square. But looming large at 3 million square feet and filling nearly 11 city blocks, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is literally one of the biggest of all the big things in the Big Easy. In late 2019, the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority (Authority) reported a recently adopted $557 million Capital Improvement Plan. The five-year project included major renovations to the 35-year-old, state-owned facility, the addition of a 7.5-acre pedestrian park, and the development of a Center-connected headquarter hotel. But with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the local and national economies felt in 2020, the possibility of moving on a project of that complexity very quickly became unrealistic. “Unfortunately, we aren’t currently in negotiations with the hotel developer on that particular project,” says Michael J. Sawaya, Convention Center President. “A new headquarter hotel attached to our facility is still in our vision for the future, but it isn’t the highest priority right now. If you’d have told me a year ago that we’d be doing what we’re doing, working in a building with no events, I just wouldn’t have believed it. That we’d shut things down the way we have… it’s AT A GLANCE NEW ORLEANS ERNEST N. MORIAL CONVENTION CENTER WHAT: The sixth largest convention facility in America WHERE: New Orleans, Louisiana WEBSITE: www.mccno.com Repositioned for the future NEW ORLEANS ONVENTION CENTER