Louisiana Avenue Firehouse
A community-submitted Section 106 success story in New Orleans, Louisiana.
photo by: Emily Van Doren
The Louisiana Avenue Firehouse, a historic structure built in the Tudor Revival style, was vacant for years before being adaptively reused.
photo by: Emily Van Doren
The historic firehouse now houses an early childhood development center and seven affordable housing units.
Built in 1911 and opened in 1912, New Orleans Fire Department Engine No. 11 is located at 2312 Louisiana Avenue. It is a contributing resource to the Uptown National Register Historic District of New Orleans. The historic firehouse was built in the Tudor Revival style. It boasts a brick ground floor on grade, and a half-timbered and rusticated stucco second floor.
The adaptive reuse of this historic firehouse, which was vacated after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, was made possible with funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) HOME Investment Partnerships Program. The project developers also received funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to address asbestos and lead abatement at the site. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority also played an active role in the project. Federal and state tax credits helped to further reduce costs and see the project through to completion.
The federal agencies that implemented the Section 106 review process were invaluable in helping to get the project off the ground. These agencies and their programs served as significant catalysts for the adaptive reuse of this former firehouse, which had stood vacant for many years.
What Would Have Been Lost
Section 106 and historic tax credit programs were crucial to the success of this adaptive reuse project, which involved repurposing a historic firehouse into an early childhood development center on the first level and seven affordable housing units on the upper levels. Retaining this local landmark was an important step for the community, but just as important was bringing child care and affordable housing to the Uptown and surrounding neighborhoods of New Orleans. Proposed changes to the Section 106 consultation process would remove the safeguards and the guidance that is so much needed in the adaptive reuse industry.
