After more than 50 years in East New Orleans, the National Finance Center has signed a lease to move its local operations to The Beach at UNO, a research and technology park located next to the University of New Orleans in Gentilly.
The announcement follows a seven-year search by the center’s approximately 600 local employees for a new home after tornadoes damaged the federal agency’s longtime offices at NASA’s Michaux Assembly Facility east of New Orleans. It will put an end to the.
Asked about the deal, Rebecca Conwell, who heads the nonprofit that runs the research park, confirmed a lease had been signed but declined to provide further details. A representative for NFC also declined to comment, but employees were informed of the news via email this week.
“I’m excited to be given a home at the National Finance Center,” said Conwell. “They will be a great addition to The Beach community.”
NFC, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, manages payroll for federal employees nationwide. The company has leased space at NASA’s Michaud Assembly Facility since 1973, along with offices in several other states.
The center, which once employed more than 1,000 people locally, has provided economic stimulus to parts of the city that need it for decades, with prizes awarded to local and federal elected officials. has been protected by.
A tornado in February 2017 collapsed the exterior wall of the building that housed the NSC on Michaud’s campus and blew out the windows. Since 2018, agency staff have been working in temporary buildings on the site.
Now they will move to 80,000 square feet on four floors in the Information Technology Center 2 building at The Beach, a research park run by the UNO Research and Technology Foundation. The 30-acre, six-building campus is home to 41 technology companies and startups.
NFC’s new office space will be occupied by the U.S. Navy until early 2024, and although the scale of operations on campus has been reduced, there are still more than 500 employees and contractors working on site.
Lease agreements are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025, but The Beach property manager Mike Siegel of Corporate Realty said staff could move into the property sooner. said.
“One of the beauties of this space is that it is in such good condition,” he said. “They will be able to move in with little or no improvement.”
The Beach competed for a tenant after the Internal Affairs and Communications Agency, which manages building leases to other federal agencies, announced a call for lease proposals this summer.
“They’ve been doing research in trailers for several years,” Siegel said. “Now they’re moving into Class A office space.”
slow process
In the months after the 2017 tornado, about a quarter of the center’s employees worked in shifts at an office near Shreveport. Some have been working remotely for most of the year.
The campus of 14 modular buildings was completed in the summer of 2018, but two years later a Department of Agriculture spokesperson said the prefabricated structures were already experiencing problems with leaks and mold.
In 2019, there were reports that USDA officials were considering moving the operation out of New Orleans entirely. That set off alarms among elected officials and economic development advocates, who lobbied to keep it in place.
For years, federal and local officials from both parties, including Republicans Steve Scalise, Bill Cassidy, and John Kennedy, and former Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond, have fought to keep the NFC in New Orleans. I have tried my best. After Hurricane Katrina temporarily closed the office, it became common for Louisiana’s delegation to insert language into spending bills requiring approval from a congressional committee before taking action.
In 2019, GSA reportedly identified three potential sites for the center’s permanent home, but the process stalled after news that a former shopping mall site in Slidell was under consideration sparked a backlash from New Orleans politicians. did.
In February 2017, NASA’s Michaud Assembly Facility was damaged by a tornado.
Elected officials said they were concerned that the move to the suburbs could be a precursor to a move out of state. Their concerns were justified. In 2019, the Department of Agriculture relocated 550 employees from its Washington, D.C., office to Kansas City, Missouri to reduce costs.
In 2020, Richmond, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and NASA supported a plan to build a new financial center in Michaud. Greater New Orleans Inc., the city’s regional economic development nonprofit, was also involved in the plan.
USDA officials disagreed, saying new buildings would be expensive and finding funding could take time. They preferred a plan to lease existing office space somewhere in the “New Orleans area,” but not necessarily East New Orleans.
In early 2020, USDA officials said they had no idea how long it would take to find, rent and renovate space.
It turns out that the answer will take nearly five years.
Siegel said financial center leaders are enthusiastic about moving to the new location on the site of the former Pontchartrain Beach amusement park.
“It’s great for the city to have this large employer stay here,” Siegel said. “It’s great for the beach, it’s great for the tenants, it’s great for the neighborhood. Once they move in, more than 90 percent of the campus will be leased with large tenants, including the Navy, which has been here for more than 20 years. It’s already great for the beach. It’s lively, but it’s going to add another 600 people.”
NFC has offices in New Orleans, Denver, and Washington, D.C., and backup facilities in St. Louis and Shreveport.
It provides financial, administrative, and human resources support to the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and Treasury.
Representatives from NASA and New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas, whose district includes the 832-acre industrial park, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
