Work Continues at New City Park Golf Course amid Controversy


Though construction and optimism continues on a new course at City Park, the 54-hole New Orleans golf facility devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, area residents have mounted a campaign to halt the project.

A group called the City Park for Everyone Coalition protested over the weekend, saying they want to convert the property into a green space free for all to use. "We'll go through the paths and identify different things through the golf course and play nature games. They'll get different points for how many animals they can sight," group leader Emily Schumacher told WDSU News.

The new course, designed by Rees Jones, is a resurrection of the former City Park layout that was washed away when a nearby levee system broke, forcing billions of gallons of saltwater into the area.

City Park's North course reopened in 2008, but the new layout is much more ambitious. The original site also contained the East and West courses; the East and West properties are being combined in the new Championship Course. The state of Louisiana hired Torre Design Consortium, which contracted with Rees Jones Golf Course Design in 2007, and the PGA Tour is involved as well.

Once the new course is built it could be the future home of the Tour's Zurich Classic of New Orleans, now played at TPC Louisiana in nearby Avondale.

The 7,200-yard Championship Course occupies 250 acres; the $24.5 million project is being funded with money from the Louisiana government budget, FEMA and the Bayou District Foundation. Also involved is a new clubhouse, with construction slated to be completed on all facilities in February 2017.

"The new project will give the park two golf courses and one driving range, bringing back revenue that had been lacking since Hurricane Katrina . . . said New Orleans City Park CEO Bob Becker," according to an early February story in the Mid-City Messenger "The course will be smaller than originally planned, however, to make room for other projects such as the new children's museum and expanded festival grounds."

The citizens' protest seeks to close the property to golfers and keep the land in its natural state. "We'll go through the paths and identify different things through the golf course and play nature games. They'll get different points for how many animals they can sight." Schumacher said.

Ariadna Blayde of the City Park for Everyone Coalition added, "Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. We believe that just because there's this huge pressure of corporate interest bearing down on us, we are still citizens, we have rights and we are passionate about making this change."