Thank You Jeff Schwartz

February 8, 2014 by admin

How One Determined Urban Planner Built a Job-Generating Lefty Foodie Xanadu in New Orleans

New Orleans | 02/07/2014 9:47am | 0
Bill Bradley | Next City

wholefoodsschwartz
Schwartz speaks at the Whole Foods grand opening Tuesday Credit: MIT School of Architecture and Planning Facebook

Conversations abound, some of them perhaps in dark bars, about what to do with abandoned buildings in urban cores. It’s less common when someone like New Orleans native Jeff Schwartz takes a pipe dream — transforming a vacant, 60,000-square-foot grocery store in the Mid-City neighborhood into a food hub — and makes it a reality.

Schwartz, 32, is executive director of Broad Community Connections (BCC), a non-profit working to revitalize a neighborhood marred by decades of disinvestment. On Tuesday, Whole Foods, the anchor of BCC’s ReFresh Project, finally opened its doors to customers.

ReFresh, which occupies a part of New Orleans where the median household income is $27,826 and 22.6 percent of residents are on SNAP, has many goals, from providing better food access to education. For this latest project, Whole Foods, Liberty’s Kitchen (a non-profit program offering culinary training to youth and meals to local public schools) and Tulane University’s Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine will occupy a former Schweggman’s grocery store, which has sat vacant since Hurricane Katrina.

The site before the ReFresh project came to town. Credit: Broad Community Connections Facebook

Whole Foods was the linchpin and name brand that tied the whole project together. But it almost didn’t happen. The Austin grocer balked at first. So Schwartz, an affable graduate of the city’s beloved magnet public high school, spent the majority of 2011 courting a dozen grocers. Then, in late December 2011, he scored an interview with the company’s co-CEO Walter Robb.

“I got dressed up in a suit for the first time at BCC. They all walked in wearing jeans and fleeces,” Schwartz told me. “I was like, ‘Okay, they’re more approachable than I thought they would be.” Schwartz and BCC expressed their vision for not only a grocer in an underserved area — something Whole Foods has been bullish on — but a broader food education effort. They wanted to make it a food hub for the entire neighborhood. It was an easy sell.

“That day, Walter [Robb] was like, ‘We’re doing it,’” said Schwartz, an urban planner who returned to his hometown to help with post-Katrina recovery after completing his degree at MIT in 2008.

The Broad Street Whole Foods will be the chain’s second store in the city. The first opened in 2002 in the city’s posh uptown shopping district, not far from Tulane University.

Broad Community Connections used various financing methods to make ReFresh a reality. Like the recently reopened Circle Foods in the Seventh Ward, the group received a $1 million loan from the city’s Fresh Food Retailer Initiative, half of which is forgivable. Another $900,000 comes from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s Corridor Revitalization Program. Various streams of private investment (including Goldman Sachs and Chase) and, like many businesses in low-income areas, New Market Tax Credits (NMTCs) made the deal possible.

It’s the latter where Whole Foods’ savvy helped BCC make the ReFresh Project work.

“Really, the biggest subsidy in the project was NMTC,” Schwartz said. (Goldman Sachs provided a $10 million NMTC allocation and Chase another $8 million.) “And Whole Foods, rather than keeping their money in their own sort of pot, they actually put their development dollars in with all of ours. That increased the amount of NMTC that we were able to get by over $1 million.”

Liberty’s Kitchen and the Goldring Center are set to open in the next two or three months. Liberty is already making 12 bulk food products daily for Whole Foods — part of the grocer’s focus on local products — which will drastically help increase revenues.

“Jeff has really built Broad Community Connections from the ground up,” said David Emond, Liberty’s executive director. “He’s been a real visionary and has been committed to this project from day one, when most people thought it would never really have a chance at all.”

Schwartz said he’s nut sure how heavily BCC might involve itself in future projects in the corridor — its hands are full with ReFresh — but hopes it will jumpstart other investments. “It’s going to have a significant impact in bringing people to Broad Street,” said Marla Nelson, associate professor and program coordinator of the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the University of New Orleans. That was Schwartz’s idea from the beginning

“We’ve always envisioned this project as being an anchor for small business development,” Schwartz said. “And we’d like to see some residential, preferably affordably or at least mixed-income development, in the rest of the corridor.”

Article courtesy NEXT CITY –> http://nextcity.org/equityfactor/entry/whole-foods-new-orleans-refresh-jeff-schwartz-project-refresh?fb_action_ids=10153791252005137&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=.UvU9A1kdsjI.like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=[625662207469569]&action_type_map=[%22og.likes%22]&action_ref_map=[%22.UvU9A1kdsjI.like%22]

 

 

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: bayou st john, broad street, equity factor, faubourg st john, food access, hurricane katrina, jeff schwartz, main street, mid-city, New Orleans, nmtc, refresh project, underserved neighborhoods, whole foods

Iconic Sign Project on Broad

August 26, 2012 by admin

The Iconic Signage Project, a collaboration between the Arts Council of New Orleans and Broad Community Connections, created four new neon signs for businesses on Broad Street.

Supported by a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the project revitalizes New Orleans’ Broad Street Main Street corridor by celebrating some of the many businesses that make Broad Street a vibrant commercial district. The Iconic Signage Project is an arts-based economic development project that employed local artists to promote small businesses, tell their story, and create a glowing visual identity for Broad Street.

One of Broad Street’s defining features is the eclectic nature of its architecture. Broad Street buildings range in style and age, from 19th century warehouses and brickyards, to early 20th century commercial storefronts and double shotgun residences, to larger contemporary commercial structures. The Iconic Signage Project creates a cohesive element among the buildings on Broad Street without imposing an artificial sense of unity on the corridor. Using neon lighting, the signs evoke some of the jazz-age and automobile-era heyday Broad Street enjoyed in the first half of the 20th century, and also visually depict the nature of the goods or services that each business provides.

Participating businesses and artists were selected through an open call and application process. Businesses that participated in the project include: The GodBarber, a barber shop at 219 South Broad Street, owned by Ardell Toney; F&F Botanica, a candle, incense, and spiritual supply shop at 801 North Broad Street, owned by Felix Figueroa; Calamari Trim Shop, an automobile, boat, and vehicle upholstery shop at 339 North Broad, owned by Joseph Calamari; and the Crescent School of Gaming and Bartending, located at 209 North Broad, and owned by Ricky Richard. The businesses were paired with artists and graphic designers—respectively—Jerry Therio, Candy Chang, Christian Stock, and Michael Cain, who met with the business owners to ensure that the signs were both creative as well as functional.

“We learned a lot about what it takes to make a great sign”, says Morgana King, Director of Public Art for the Arts Council of New Orleans. “To share that information and make it easier to produce unique signage throughout New Orleans, we also created the DIY Guide to Iconic Signs as little project lagniappe. The guide is a resource for other neighborhood groups and businesses interested in creating their own iconic signs.” It is available online at www.artscouncilofneworleans.org and through the City’s Office of Safety and Permits.

Broad Community Connections, http://broadcommunityconnections.org/, plans to continue the project this fall. Says BCC’s Executive Director, Jeff Schwartz, “Broad Street and Bayou Road are filled with great small businesses and business owners, and the Iconic Signage Project is one way that our organization—in partnership with the Arts Council of New Orleans—is working to celebrate and support them as a part of fulfilling our mission to revitalize Broad Street and the surrounding communities. Small businesses are one of the cornerstones not just of the corridor, but of the culture of the city, and these signs and the artists who participated in the project helped to tell their story.”

A celebration of the completed Iconic Signage Project, for artists, business owners, Broad Community Connections and Arts Council supporters will take place at Falstaff Brewery August 30th, 2012 from 5-8pm.

Source: http://www.artscouncilofneworleans.org/article.php?story=20120821173416147rld0812&query=rld0812

Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: art, bayou, bayou st john, broad, faubourg, faubourg st john, main street, neighborhood, neon, New Orleans, project, sign

Copyright © 2023 · BG Minimalist on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in