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New Orleans, LA

New Orleans Issues the Permit for the River District's First Apartments

New Orleans issued the building permit Oct. 27 for Rivana, a four-story, 220-unit income-restricted apartment building at Tchoupitoulas and Race streets, with a reported value of $64.5 million, the first housing in the 39-acre River District beside the convention center.

By Morningline Research · November 3, 2026

The City of New Orleans issued a building permit on Oct. 27 for Rivana, a four-story apartment building with 220 income-restricted units at 1480 Tchoupitoulas St. It's the first apartment building planned for the River District, the 39-acre stretch of empty riverfront next to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The permit puts the building at 242,000 square feet, with 15,800 square feet of white-box retail on the ground floor. Its reported value is $64.5 million.

One permit, after a long wait

Timeline of the Rivana permit and River District milestones
Graphic: Morningline Research, from the city building permit and the reporting linked in this story.

The permit's own words describe "new construction 4-story (242,000 SF) 220-unit income-restricted multifamily and white-box commercial retail development." It leaves a few pieces for later. The retail build-outs need their own permits, and so does the pool. Stormwater work is covered under a separate permit number.

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The reported value is the construction estimate filed with the city, not the full cost of the project. The Times-Picayune and WWL Louisiana both put Rivana's total development cost at $100 million. That's a broader figure than the construction value on a permit, so the two numbers measure different things.

The site sits at the corner of Race and Tchoupitoulas, just upriver from the new Shell building, the Times-Picayune reported. Plans there show the four stories wrapped around a courtyard with a pool, with the parking entrance and first-floor retail along Euterpe Street. Euterpe and Race are set to be extended through to Convention Center Boulevard.

Who it's for

Every one of the 220 apartments is set aside as affordable or workforce housing for households earning 20% to 80% of the area median income, for 40 years, according to a City Council release.

The units run from studios of about 500 square feet to two-bedrooms of up to about 1,000. Terri North, CEO of Providence Community Housing, told the Times-Picayune that a unit at 60% of median income would rent for under $1,000 a month, about half the area's market rate, and one at 80% for around $1,300. North said the building is "perfect for the essential workers" in the French Quarter, the CBD and the convention center.

Providence, a nonprofit that has built more than 3,000 homes around Greater New Orleans, took a 51% share of Rivana in February. Its partners are members of River District Neighborhood Investors, the group running the larger district.

How the money came together

On July 9, the council approved a 40-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for the building by a 6-1 vote, Fox 8 reported. Instead of regular property taxes, the project pays $5,000 in the first year, rising 3% a year, WWL Louisiana reported. Council President J.P. Morrell cast the one no vote.

Councilmember Lesli Harris, whose district includes the site, said the land "has brought in zero dollars in taxes for the city in the past 20-plus years," according to WWL.

Other money came from the convention center, which put in $6.5 million, and the state, which awarded $16.5 million from a federal program for low- and moderate-income residents, the Times-Picayune reported. WWL reported the building will bring at least 10 permanent jobs, plus the ground-floor shops.

Down the street, Shell

The entrance of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
The entrance of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the River District's neighbor. Photo: Tom Woodward, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).

The Exhibition Hall Authority, which runs the convention center and owns the land, picked River District Neighborhood Investors to develop it in 2018, according to the convention center. The first building, Shell Plaza, broke ground in February 2025. It's an eight-story, 123,941-square-foot office building at 1600 Convention Center Blvd. for Shell's Gulf operations. It was the first Class A office building to break ground in New Orleans since 1989, REBusinessOnline reported.

Rivana comes next, and it starts the housing. The council's long-range goal for the district is 900 homes, with 450 of them affordable or workforce housing. A 27-story Omni hotel has also been proposed for the district and is still working through council approval, Fox 8 reported.

Next up at 1480 Tchoupitoulas are the separate permits the city still has to issue for the retail spaces and the pool.

How we count

The permit comes from the City of New Orleans building permit records, counted by issue date. The value is the valuation reported on the permit, not a contract amount. Company and developer names come from the news coverage linked here.

See all of New Orleans' latest permit numbers, updated weekly.

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Sources

More from Morningline Research

More numbers: New Orleans, LA building permit activity, updated weekly.