TheAudubon Aquariumis currently closed for at least six months but the good news is that it is getting a facelift along with Woldenberg Park. The $41 million renovation will be a great perk once it is finished.
The Aquarium has been renovated before, but this is the biggest renovation since 1990. The new attraction called the Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium links the aquarium to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium. The Entergy Giant Screen Theater will be removed and replaced with the insectarium exhibits.
The renovation will add over 17,000 feet of exhibit space. The new entrance and lobby will be an enclosed 60-foot tall glass lobby. The glass pyramid will shoot out from the building facing the Mississippi River.
The Insectarium space will have a special event space on the first floor and the second floor will include the insectarium galleries and butterfly pavilion. The new butterfly exhibit will have lower ceilings so visitors can get a better look at the butterflies.
The aquarium will get upgrades including the Mississippi River Gallery, the Amazon Rainforest Gallery and the Top of the Gulf Experience. Woldenberg Park will also get $7 million in upgrades on the entrances, landscaping and electrical system.
St. Claude Arts Park is a new park in Arabi that was built on the lot next to the Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge. The park is a nice new outdoor venue and art market space for residents and visitors to enjoy. The park opening was celebrated with two free concerts sponsored by theJazz Foundation of America.
The land that the new park is located on is owned by Meraux Foundation which also owns the land the two blocks art district is located on. The arts district includes Zeitgeist Theatre, the artist’s studio and exhibition space St. Claude Arts and the consulting, design and framing business Art Conscious. The foundation is a private family foundation that supports many initiatives in St. Bernard Parish. These initiatives include projects in coastal restoration, economic development, arts and culture, and education.
“We want to leverage arts and culture as an economic driver. It’s organically growing into a nice destination,” says Chris Haines, who is a member of the Meraux Foundation Board.
The St. Claude Arts space is made up of 11 studios that are affordable for artists to use. They are currently filled with artists who are using a vast array of different mediums including painting, mixed media, photography, printmaking, woodworking, furniture refurbishing, and vintage clothing. One of the studios is Visual Arts which displays local exhibitions. Art will also be displayed on walls throughout the art district as the foundation has hired 10 muralists to complete this project.
As for the park, there are around 10,000 square feet of open space with lights and a covered area for bands and performances. The building facade located at 6609 St. Claude Ave houses the restrooms, and storage space and the black back wall will be used for outdoor movies. The park and Zeitgeist Theatre will hold the reception for PhotoNOLA which is New Orleans’ photography festival that runs December 7 – 10, 2022. During this festival, there will also be a photography-themed art market.
The state has decided to locate two new state cultural districts in Gretna and Jean Lafitte. One of the main reasons is that these are sites where two historic buildings are located that could possibly qualify for state historic tax credits. Another bonus is that any qualifying art that will be sold at the two locations will be exempt from local sales tax.
Jefferson Parish will now be the site of five state cultural districts in Louisiana. The first will be the new South Gretna Cultural District that will cover parts of southern Gretna along the south of Gretna Boulevard including Gretna City Park and Timberlane Estates. Everything north of the Westbank Expressway is already included in a separate state cultural district. The new Jean Lafitte Cultural District will include a block on both sides of Jean Lafitte Boulevard from Camille Court south to Shipyard Street.
There are 124 state cultural districts now in Louisiana, including six new districts that were announced. The other new districts were the City of Crowley African American Cultural Historical District in Crowley, Divine Nine Cultural District in Monroe, Franklin Cultural District in Franklin, Pointe-aux-Loups Cultural District in Iota.
Studies reveal that the population in many communities is ramping up. Gainesville, Georgiahas seen its population jump from 100,000 to 250,000 with around 15,000 projected listings. Other areas in the county that have seen an increase in population are Port St. Lucie, FL with 23,800, Durham-Chapel Hill, NC with 44,850, North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL with 40,141, Nashville-Davidons-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN with 82,050, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler AZ with 136,394 and New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA comes in at 280,999. The market in June 2023 is predicted to see 7.3 million homes come on the market in the 364 Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
Families with children in grades K-12 should make up 22.5% of the market presence of all homes sold in the country. The report broke down each MSA by size and concluded that of those markets with a population of less than 100,000 Rome, GA had the most predicted listings to hit market by June 2023 at 4,323 properties.
Below follows a list of those markets with most homes predicted to come on the market through June 2023 in eight different population sizes:
