Workers have started demolishing the former Lindy Boggs Medical Center in Mid-City, nearly two decades after the hospital flooded during Hurricane Katrina and never reopened. The first phase of work — removing steel coverings from the 13-acre building at 301 N. Norman C. Francis Parkway — got underway on July 7, the same day the New Orleans City Council’s Community Development Committee advanced a lease agreement formalizing the city’s role in the redevelopment. The lease, between the city and the private development group Mercy Partners LLC, covers the planned installation of a 4-million-gallon underground stormwater retention tank in the building’s existing basement.

The development team behind the project is led by Bill Hoffman of Woodward Design and his partners. Under the plan, the city will spend $11.5 million from voter-approved bond funds on demolition and stormwater infrastructure, while Mercy Partners pursues a $100 million-plus mixed-use project on the aboveground portions of the site once the hospital structure comes down. The envisioned program includes boutique offices, retail space, multifamily apartments, and open public amenities. The stormwater tank will hold water from the surrounding Bienville Street corridor and discharge it into the Sewerage and Water Board’s drainage system at Conti Street.

Jeff Schwartz, the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, said full demolition will take six to eight months, with portions of the structure potentially coming down this month. The project will begin with an asbestos remediation phase expected to take about two months before any structural work starts. A cooperative endeavor agreement between Mayor Helena Moreno’s administration and the development team formalizing cost-sharing was signed in April, and the July 7 committee vote moves the deal to the full City Council for final approval.

Councilmember Matthew Willard, who chairs the Community Development Committee, said advancing the lease brings the neighborhood closer to resolving a long-running blight problem that has frustrated residents and investors for two decades. The site sits at the intersection of the Bayou St. John corridor and the Lafitte Greenway, an area that has drawn increasing private investment in recent years. Developer Sidney Torres IV, who owns property adjacent to the hospital site, said the demolition will accelerate interest from outside investors. Torres has separately announced plans for a food and lifestyle center on his nearby parcels designed to draw visitors from the French Quarter to City Park.

The formal name of the hospital — Lindy Boggs Medical Center, in honor of the late Congresswoman — was applied in 2004 just before it was inundated by Katrina floodwaters and permanently closed. Locals have referred to the property as Mercy since its origins as the Sisters of Mercy’s Mid-City hospital, which opened in 1953. A succession of redevelopment proposals over the past 15 years failed to advance, making the current public-private structure — backed by $11.5 million in city bond funds approved by voters last fall and Mercy Partners’ private equity — the first to reach the construction phase.

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