The Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority has sold a 2.7-acre River District parcel at Tchoupitoulas and Euterpe streets to the developer behind Rivana, the 220-unit mixed-income apartment project planned for the site. RDNI Batture LLC recorded the purchase of 1484 Tchoupitoulas Street for $1,188,570, or $10.00 per square foot of land, in the week ending October 12.

The transfer resolves a question that has hung over the River District for years. The Convention Center Authority, a state entity, has owned the 39-acre tract upriver from the convention center since before River District Neighborhood Investors was selected as master developer, and the arrangement had run on leases rather than conveyances. Moving the Rivana parcel into the developer’s hands through an outright sale rather than a ground lease marks a structural change in how the district’s residential phases are being assembled.

Rivana is the affordable housing component that has carried much of the political weight behind the broader development. The 220 units are planned as mixed-income, and the project’s affordability commitments have been central to the public investment the River District has drawn. The parcel sits directly across Tchoupitoulas Street from the Shell office building now under construction, placing the residential phase adjacent to the district’s anchor commercial tenant.

The pricing is worth noting. At $10.00 per land square foot, the sale is well below what riverfront-adjacent land in the Warehouse District and Lower Garden District has traded at in recent years. The figure reflects the parcel’s designation for income-restricted housing and the obligations attached to it rather than an open-market valuation of the site.

The Rivana transaction accounted for roughly a fifth of all disclosed commercial sale volume recorded across New Orleans and surrounding markets that week. Twelve commercial sales closed in total, representing $5.72 million in disclosed volume, with retail properties making up nine of the twelve. The other notable deal was Jahn Investment LLC’s $1.2 million purchase of a restaurant property on St. Charles Avenue, which traded at $136.35 per square foot.

With the land now held by the developer, the remaining question for Rivana is construction financing and a start date. The project has moved through a long sequence of approvals, lease negotiations, and funding assembly, and the conveyance removes one of the last structural obstacles standing between the entitlement work and a groundbreaking.

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