NOCCA breaks ground on 60,000-square-foot expansion
The New Orleans Center for Creative Artsbroke ground Wednesday on a $26.6 million, 60,000-square-foot expansion. The school is renovating a 19th-century warehouse next door to its 142,000-square-foot home that opened in 2000 on the Marigny-Bywater line.
City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer attended the ceremony, as did alumnus Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews. NOCCA celebrates its 40th anniversary next year.
John C. Williams Architects designed the new NOCCA Forum building, which runs from Chartres to Royal streets on Press Street and formerly housed Habitat for Humanity. There will be a public gallery and café as well as rental space. NOCCA culinary students and alumni will run an open garden and an off-street food truck, spokesman Brian Hammell said.
“There’s some business opportunities here that help the school,” Hammell said, and at the same time, “I really see it serving our entire neighborhood.”
Most of the space will be devoted to the school’s full-day program, the NOCCA Academic Studio, which received its first-ever school performance scoreletter grade last week, an A. Almost 180 of NOCCA’s 630 students are in that program this fall in grades nine through 11. They pass an arts audition but have no academic entrance requirements.
Administrators envision the forum building as “a model environment for 21st-century learning,” according to a statement from Richard Read of the NOCCA Institute. The school won an award this week from the International Association of K-12 Online Learning for its blended online/in-person foreign language classes.
Funding for the expansion comes largely from First NBC and Whitney Bank, federal and state tax credits, a federal Quality Zone Academy Bond and an $11.6 million capital campaign. Unlike with most New Orleans school building projects, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not involved. The expansion is likely to open in the fall or winter of 2014.
A condominium developer bought NOCCA’s original building near Audubon Park in 2011, after Lusher opted not to buy it.