Tag: st charles

Rubenstein Hotel opens on New Orleans’ Canal Street | Business News

After more than five years of planning and 18 months of construction, the Rubenstein Hotel is open for business atop the Rubenstein family’s century-old clothing store at the intersection of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue.

The hotel is carved out of the second and third floors of five interconnected buildings that previously housed offices and storage space for Rubensteins. Now, those spaces have been converted into 40 boutique rooms with big picture windows, a contemporary décor and vintage Rubensteins newspaper ads hanging from the walls.

Brothers David and Andre Rubenstein, who continue to run the family retail business, partnered on the project with Joe Jaeger, who will operate the hotel as part of his J Collection of boutique hotels.




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The Rubenstein Hotel is open for business atop the Rubenstein familyÕs century-old clothing store at the intersection of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue on Wednesday, January 24, 2024. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune)




The Rubenstein Hotel, which opened at the beginning of the year, joins a growing number of boutique hotels around New Orleans aimed at travelers looking for unique properties with local touches. Many, including the 71-room Hotel Peter and Paul in the Bywater and the 75-room Hotel St. Vincent on Magazine Street, are renovations of historic buildings.

Hotel occupancy rates downtown remain well below its pre-COVID levels of around 75%. In 2023, 61.5% of downtown and French Quarter hotel rooms were occupied, up from 60% the year before, according to New Orleans and Co. But David Rubenstein, a tireless advocate of Canal Street, said he believes the numbers are trending in the right direction and that his hotel’s location is a strategic advantage. 




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Brothers David and Andre Rubenstein are seen at the Rubenstein Hotel in New Orleans on Wednesday, January

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Plans for hotel in former Whitney Bank building stalled as developer looks for new partners | Business News

It’s been three years since Baton Rouge developers Mike Wampold and his partner Lenny Lemoine acquired the 111-year-old Whitney National Bank building on St. Charles Avenue in the Central Business District with plans of redeveloping the historic structure into a mixed-use development anchored by a high-end, boutique hotel.

But the pandemic’s effect on tourism, combined with rising construction costs and recent interest rate hikes have slowed their progress.

The iconic 14-story bank building at 228 St. Charles Ave. and six adjacent structures that were also part of the Sept. 2019 deal have been vacant since Hancock Whitney relocated its downtown offices to the 51-story Hancock Whitney Center on Poydras Street several months prior to the sale. No construction is underway at the site because no designs or plans have been finalized, though Wampold said the project is moving forward, albeit at a slower pace, while he and Lemoine search for a partner to co-develop with them.

“We had the world coming to us in late 2019 because it’s the best location in New Orleans, next to the French Quarter and surrounded by business,” Wampold said. “Then COVID hit and for two years, the hospitality industry and lending industry pulled their horns in. Everyone was tending to their own assets and issues.”

A $100 million project

Wampold didn’t disclose what he and Lemoine paid for the 111-year-old building when they bought the buildings, which total nearly 500,000 square feet on the block bounded by St. Charles Avenue, Camp, Gravier and Common streets. At the time, the sale price was recorded with the Orleans Parish Clerk of Court as $10 and “other valuable considerations.”

But the estimated total cost of the redevelopment project, including the purchase price for the structures, is now well in excess of $100 million, Wampold said.  




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Milford

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