1 week Ago
The proposed 9th Ward Stadium is shown in an artists' rendering. A rendering of the proposed 9th Ward Stadium project, which is scheduled to break ground later this summer in the Desire neighborhood of the Upper 9th Ward. Photo courtesy of Williams Architects Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save The dream of building a football stadium in New Orleans’ historic Desire neighborhood is still alive.
In fact, it’s close to becoming a reality. For several years, organizers have worked tirelessly to bring the project to fruition. They’re now near the goal line, with just one final push needed cross into the end zone.
“We’ve raised $10 million, all through public funding — federal, state and local — which is unprecedented,” said Arnie Fielkow, the former New Orleans city councilman, who has spearheaded the project. “We’ve struggled in the private sector. If we can get it to $12 million, then we feel comfortable that we can still get the stadium we all want for the community.
” Organizers held a community meeting at the Desire-Florida Community Center on Thursday night to update residents on the project and sound a final call for support. They hope to lure a sponsor for naming rights to the stadium and/or field. “This is an exciting opportunity,” Fielkow said.
“Hopefully, someone from our corporate community will step up.” The 9th Ward Project is an important one for a neighborhood that could use a boost. Organizers believe the stadium can serve as an economic engine for the Upper 9th Ward neighborhood, which was inundated by Katrina's floodwaters and has experienced a checkered recovery in the 19 years since.
The hope is that it will not only spur redevelopment in the neighborhood but also serve as a source of pride for residents in the oft-neglected community. Organizers are hoping to deliver what their predecessors, the aborted 9th Ward Field of Dreams project, failed to do 17 years ago. Fielkow, the former New Orleans Saints executive, resurrected the plan after learning of the failed efforts of the original stadium project, which was launched in 2008 by former Carver teacher and athletic director Brian Bordainick.
Fielkow donated $25,000 to the original campaign, which also attracted support from Drew Brees, Sean Payton and James Carville, among others. The feel-good story garnered national attention, including a mention from President Barack Obama in his 2010 speech to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the storm. The project eventually was derailed by internal politics and malfeasance.
A three-month investigation by The Athletic and WVUE-TV in 2019 revealed that the original project had been abandoned by a group of Carver alumni, who wrested control from Bordainick and squandered more than $1 million in donations. Fielkow has assembled an impressive board for the new 501c3 nonprofit: former state senator Ann Duplesis; local developer Darryl Berger; First Jewish Endowment Foundation executive director Bobby Garon; civil engineer Roy Glapion; Jones Walker partner Bill Hines; charter school executive Stacy Martin; former Saints running back Deuce McAllister; architect Mark Ripple; and Wilbert Thomas, a 1968 Carver High graduate and Desire community activist. The group’s five-year fundraising mission has restored hope for the project and brought it to the brink of reality.
The stadium, which was designed by architects John Williams and Curtis Laub, will be located on a vacant piece of land adjacent to Carver’s campus just south of Interstate 10 and owned by New Orleans Public Schools. NOPS will oversee the facility and hire a management company to operate and maintain it. Carver, like most public schools in Orleans Parish, does not have its own football field.
Since the school began fielding a team in the early 1960s, it has played its home games at various neutral sites around the city, some as far as 10 miles away from the school's Higgins Boulevard campus. The proposed 4,000-seat stadium will have a turf field, scoreboard, press box, 160-space parking lot and grass berm for a kids area. It would serve as an anchor home field for Carver athletic teams but also will be open for use by all public high schools and middle schools, with an emphasis on serving schools in eastern New Orleans.
Soccer games, and potentially other sports like lacrosse and field hockey, will also be played at the facility. New Orleans’ 40-plus public and charter schools currently have only three venues in which to play sports — Joe Brown Park, Pan American Stadium and Tad Gormley Stadium — on the East Bank. The sponsorship of the stadium’s naming rights is not a dealbreaker, but a dealmaker.
One way or the other, the project is on track to break ground in September and to hopefully open in late 2026 or early 2027. "This is such an impactful project and such a great project,” Fielkow said. “Once the stadium gets built, it's going to serve kids throughout the New Orleans area for decades to come.
Surely, there is a community partner that wants to put their name on this legacy project for this community. It's something very special for the city of New Orleans.".
