Bourbon street construction nearly 3x over budget

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Reconstruction of an eight-block stretch of Bourbon Street marked a milestone Wednesday (Jan. 31) as city officials hailed the completion of work on four blocks from Canal to St. Louis streets. But costs for the project - which has been divided into two phases - have skyrocketed from an original estimate of $6 million last spring to $13 million in August, and now to $17 million. Meanwhile, as officials proclaimed Bourbon "open for business" at a news conference Wednesday in the 300 block, dancers protested a round of raids over the last two weeks of eight Bourbon strip clubs by federal and local law enforcement agencies. Authorities allege to have found evidence in the clubs of prostitution, drug sales and "lewd acts." Two clubs have also shut down in recent weeks, while seven others face alcohol license suspensions.

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Amid the din, Dani Galloway, the interim director of the city's Department of Public Works, managed to note that costs to reconstruct the first four blocks of Bourbon have tallied $10.2 million - far higher than the original estimate of $6 million for all eight blocks presented last spring. She acknowledged that the city has "learned many lessons" by the reconstruction project, highlighting the tangle of pipes that garbled work schedules.

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Additionally, costs to continue reconstructing four blocks from St. Louis to Dumaine streets as part of a separate project are currently estimated at $6.8 million, according to Tyronne Walker, Mayor Mitch Landrieu's communications director. That brings the full estimated cost for all eight blocks to $17 million - nearly triple the original $6 million estimate.

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