"If there was somewhere I could grab coffee after or spend some more time around here, I would totally do it," a woman who runs along the New Orleans lakefront told Fox 8 back in March, standing near the fenced-off lot where West End Park used to draw crowds. Six months later, that lot is still fenced off. But the paperwork behind it just moved further than it has in twenty years.
On September 18, the New Orleans City Council voted to let Mayor Helena Moreno enter into a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement with Jefferson Parish, the State of Louisiana, and other business organizations to redevelop West End. If you walk, bike, or drive past that stretch of Lakeshore Drive regularly, you've probably already seen the headlines. What's worth understanding, if you live near it, is what this vote actually authorizes and what it doesn't. The two are easy to blur, especially with old photographs of the site making the rounds again.
Two Decades Fenced Off, One September Vote
The site has sat mostly untouched since Hurricane Katrina damaged it in 2005. Ownership split between two parishes made any single agency's plan hard to execute. That started to change this year. In March, State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty's legislation to create a West End Economic Development District advanced out of committee, giving the site a governing structure for the first time. In July, Orleans and Jefferson officials announced they'd finalized an agreement on how the two governments would actually work together, including how to split future tax revenue. The September 18 council vote is the next link in that chain: it gives Moreno the authority to sign a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement that sets the framework for redevelopment, not a construction permit.
The district, once seated, will have a five-member board with appointees from both parishes. It can also seek voter approval for a sales tax of up to 2 percent inside the district to fund improvements. No such tax has been enacted. No developer has committed to the site. City officials have said publicly that they want public input before any design moves forward. What passed on September 18 is a mechanism for negotiation, not a rendering of what's coming.
The Nostalgia the Photos Are Selling
Part of why the story has traveled so widely is timing. Vintage photographs of the old West End, restaurants built on pilings over the lake, wooden walkways, crowds spilling out of places like Bruning's and Fitzgerald's, resurfaced on NOLA.com right as this legislative push picked up steam. One caption on those archival images noted that the wooden bridge would be closed permanently to motor vehicles as work continued on a new pedestrian mall, a detail from decades ago that now reads almost like foreshadowing.
That resurfacing has done real work shaping what people expect from this project. Jefferson Parish Council member Hans Liljeberg, one of the officials pushing the legislation, put it simply when asked why he cares:
"One of my first dates was at Maggie and Smitty's on the lake with my wife right now."
Maggie and Smitty's isn't coming back. Neither is the version of West End where you parked, walked out over open water, and ordered oysters from a dining room built on stilts. The site's history is real and worth knowing. It's also not a preview.
What the Pump Station Won't Allow
The reason has nothing to do with money or willpower and everything to do with engineering. The Army Corps of Engineers has been clear that construction directly over the lake at this site isn't happening again, because it would interfere with outflow at the 17th Street Canal pumping station next door, the same infrastructure that helps drain this side of the city during heavy rain. Liljeberg said it plainly when the legislation was moving: building back out over the water would be cost prohibitive, so that option is off the table entirely.
That constraint shapes everything that comes next. Local reporting on the site has noted that any private development is likely to be confined to the footprint of the old parking lot, on land, not water. Neighborhood and civic groups have also pushed to keep sections of the lakeshore itself as open, public parkland rather than handing all of it to commercial leaseholders. Between the Corps' engineering limits and that local pushback, whatever eventually gets built at West End will look more like a shoreline development with restaurants, green space, and pavilions, the language city officials have actually used, than a return of the piers.
Pavlos Petrou, who owns Russell's Marina Grill nearby, told WWL-TV he supports the idea for a simple reason: the site has been empty a long time, and almost anything would bring more attention to the area. He wasn't describing a comeback of what was lost. He was describing an argument for filling a hole that's been there since 2005.
What's Already Standing
While the district gets organized, two things on that stretch of the lakefront haven't waited for anyone's vote. Russell's Marina Grill, at 8555 Pontchartrain Boulevard, has been serving breakfast and lunch since 1985 and has been under Petrou's ownership since 1989. It sits close enough to the old West End footprint that its regulars have watched the fenced lot sit empty for their entire time as customers. The restaurant didn't need a redevelopment plan to stay open, and it isn't waiting on one now.
The New Canal Lighthouse, at 8001 Lakeshore Drive, is the other fixed point. The original 1838 structure is long gone, but the lighthouse standing there today was rebuilt after Katrina and raised nineteen feet above the lake's surface. It functions as a working museum operated by the Pontchartrain Conservancy, with exhibits on the lake's history and its restoration campaigns, and it doubles as an event venue for weddings and gatherings. Neither of these places is part of the redevelopment conversation. Both are proof that the lakefront doesn't need a master plan to keep functioning day to day.
The Lakefront's Actual Fall Calendar
None of the political timeline changes what's already scheduled at the lake this season. On October 3, from 9 a.m. to noon, the Pontchartrain Conservancy is running a guided bicycle tour of the lakefront with Bike Easy, stopping at three points: Bayou St. John, the New Canal Lighthouse, and Bucktown. Conservancy staff cover the ecology and history of each stop while Bike Easy leads the riding and safety briefing. Riders need to bring their own bike and a helmet, and the ride is open to anyone eighteen or older, or sixteen and up with an adult.
Later in the year, the Conservancy hosts its long-running Lights on the Lake event at the same lighthouse, the best vantage point locals have for watching the West End Boat Parade, where boat owners decorate their vessels and cruise a route along Lakeshore Drive, into the New Basin Canal, and through the harbor. It's been a December fixture for over a decade now, entirely separate from whatever the new economic development district eventually builds next door.
The vote on September 18 changes who has the authority to negotiate West End's future. It doesn't change what's standing there this week, and it doesn't put the old pier restaurants back over the water. The version of West End that eventually gets built will sit on land the Army Corps will actually permit, shaped by a board that hasn't been seated yet, funded by a tax that hasn't been voted on. Everything else happening on that stretch of lakefront this fall, the bike tour, the lighthouse tours, Russell's opening at seven every morning, is already real.
If you've been watching the West End conversation and want to talk through what it might mean for property near the lakefront down the road, Kara Lashley knows this stretch of Lakeview well enough to separate the signal from the nostalgia. Let's Connect.
