NOPSI New Orleans

NOPSI New Orleans, or the NOPSI Hotel, is a hotel in the historic NOPSI building in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

NOPSI Hotel
NOPSI building in 2010, before restoration of ground-floor glass and of the marquee
Location317 Baronne St, New Orleans, Louisiana
Coordinates29.9521°N 90.0729°W / 29.9521; -90.0729
Part ofNew Orleans Lower Central Business District (ID91000825)
Designated CPJune 24, 1991

The building is the former headquarters of New Orleans' main utilities company, the New Orleans Public Service Incorporated, which was set up in 1922 to consolidate numerous separate public utilities firms. Its nine-story building was designed by architects Favrot and Livaudais, and was constructed in 1927. The building "displayed some of the finest architectural finishes throughout the whole city. Perhaps the greatest feature was the ornate lobby that resembled the ground floor of a bank."[1]

The NOPSI entity relocated away in 1983, and the building was then vacant for many years. In 1991 it was included as a contributing building in the listing of the New Orleans Lower Central Business District onto the National Register of Historic Places.[2]

Eventually it was converted into the current 217-room hotel, which opened in 2017.[1]

It has been listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a member of the Historic Hotels of America program since 2016.[3]

The hotel is noted as one of few boutique hotels owned by black women. Sheila Johnson, NOPSI's owner who has had other business successes, is credited with reopening the hotel after it had been unused since the 1980s. It is deemed to be a luxury hotel, and its grand lobby has been asserted to be stunning.[4]

New Orleans City Business pointed out in 2021 that the renovation was an adaptive reuse project, one of few recent at that time, as suitable properties in New Orleans central business district were simply not available.[5]

It is now a top New Orleans hotel.[6]

The building is located essentially on the northwest corner of the intersection of Union and Baronne Streets. A small rectangular plaza at the very corner, however, makes a notched footprint into the building, so the building's footprint forms a very heavy L-shape around that rectangle. The plaza is walled off from the sidewalks and is part of the NOPSI property. It is just three blocks (0.2 miles (0.32 km) northeast along Baronne to New Orleans' major Canal Street thoroughfare, and then just one block southeast to the beginning of Bourbon Street, noted as a major entrance into the French Quarter.

The building's roof sports an outdoor pool.[7]

References
  1. "NOPSI New Orleans: History". Historic Hotels of America.
  2. John C. Ferguson (June 1990). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Lower Central Business District". National Park Service. Retrieved December 9, 2017. With 27 photos from 1990. The NOPSI building was not mentioned in the registration but is included in the maps. Included photo 25 happens to show buildings across Baronne from the NOPSI building.
  3. "NOPSI New Orleans". Historic Hotels of America. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  4. K. Natasha (October 24, 2020). "5 Boutique Hotels Owned and Operated By Black Women". Essence.
  5. Andrew Valenti (December 30, 2021). "Historic property in CBD changes hands". New Orleans CityBusiness. The NOPSI Hotel at 317 Baronne St., the Catahoula Hotel at 914 Union St., The Pythian Apartments and Market at 234 Loyola Ave. and The Troubadour Hotel at 1111 Gravier St. are all adaptive reuse projects that have been brought back into commerce in the last five years.
  6. John Oseid. "NOPSI Hotel: A Grand Old Utility Bureau Is Now A Top New Orleans Lodge". Forbes.
  7. Google satellite view
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