Proponents of separate proposals to bring a new and expanded Louisiana Children's Museum and a studio housing Louisiana Public Broadcasting production facilities to New Orleans' City Park will go public today with their first detailed descriptions of the ambitious plans.

Also on the City Park Improvement Association agenda is an update by the Fore!Kids Foundation, which wants to replace the park's storm-battered golf courses with a state-of-the-art complex suitable to host PGA Tour events.

The three projects -- all works in progress lacking definitive price tags -- could become part of a restoration blueprint for the park, revising a master plan adopted before Hurricane Katrina inflicted more than $40 million in damage to the city's premier green space.

In addition to the three presentations, park officials will revisit the 13-year, $115 million master plan that includes a range of attractions across the 1,300 acres, from a skate park to a children's water-play area to an amphitheater.

The meeting, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. in the Pavilion of the Two Sisters, is open to the public.

"We see this as a chance to give an update on the park's recovery," Chief Executive Officer Robert Becker said. "And as part of that report, I will go over the master plan. It will be sort of a refresher: what's in it and how we got to what we got."

Public comments on the master plan voted on by the park board in 2005 prompted officials to add new components to their grand vision, Becker said, including the skate park and a dog park.

"We're looking forward to getting more ideas as well as questions and comments on these new proposals," he said.

Though plans to revitalize the dormant golf courses have been on the table for more than a year, few specifics have been released regarding proposals to relocate the Children's Museum from its downtown site on Julia Street and to build a public television studio that would feature a music museum catering to children.

Though no locations have been selected, Becker said the master plan recommends setting aside land for cultural projects along Roosevelt Mall, the wide boulevard that runs next to Tad Gormley Stadium.

The Children's Museum is eyeing a 12- to 15-acre site on the north side of the street that would be built partially atop one of the park lagoons, said Julia Bland, the museum's executive director.

Bland said the concept, which predates the hurricane, calls for the new museum to focus on early childhood development and to include a parenting center run by Children's Hospital and a public library branch catering to children's needs.

Other planned features are a nature center, a theater equipped for live performances, and an art studio and gallery.

"We see this as a holistic approach to providing parents with information on being better parents," Bland said. The "early learning village" would offer families a range of resources from research to advice from experts in early childhood development, she said.

The museum has received "seed money" for the project from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, Bland said, but declined to say how much money is involved. She also declined to estimate the total cost of construction

Museum officials hope to open the first phase of the facility by 2010. It is unclear what would happen to the downtown site, which the museum owns.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting President Beth Courtney said the preferred site for the proposed studio is on the south side of Roosevelt Mall, east of Tad Gormley Stadium.

She said LPB officials say the "Studio in the Park" can be built for about $16 million. The Tipitina's Foundation has agreed to be a partner in the project, which would include a music museum for children's education.

Courtney said plans call for the facility to include a studio that can host live audiences for musical performances, cooking shows and political debates that could be aired across the state over a fiber-optic network. She said the technology would allow a voter in Alexandria to pose questions to candidates gathered in the park studio.

The studio also would serve as a home for WLAE, Channel 32, which is operated by LPB and the Willwoods Community, a service group affiliated with the Catholic Church. The station now operates in a cramped workspace in a building on Causeway Boulevard in Metairie.

Courtney, who could not provide an estimate of how large the facility would be, said it would not overwhelm the site.

"None of this is fixed in stone," she said. "We really want to know what people want in their park."

To date, officials with The Fore!Kids Foundation have not said much publicly about their plan to invest up to $200 million in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Besides the improvements to the park's golf courses, the proposal includes the construction of 1,000 units of mixed-income housing, two 400-pupil charter schools and a YMCA family center on and near the site of the soon-to-be-demolished St. Bernard public housing complex.

City Park officials have said that $6.2 million in state aid they have received to repair the golf complex could be added to the pot as the park's contribution to the plan.

Park officials, who have closed the south golf course, had planned to reopen the north, east and west courses.

But the Fore!Kids proposal calls for the foundation to use the available space to operate two refurbished, 18-hole championship courses and a nine-hole layout. That plan calls for closing the north course and moving soccer and baseball fields along Marconi Drive and Harrison Avenue to the site.

Becker said his staff will analyze the information presented today from the various projects and the public comments before reporting back to the City Park board in a few months.

Wherever necessary, he said, changes will be made to the master plan. Before the board green-lights any project, the public will get further opportunities to weigh in on the developers' concrete proposals, cost estimates and construction timetables.

Link to article