Partial building collapse prompts evacuation, street closures Saturday in New Orleans’ CBD

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – A partially collapsed building in New Orleans’ Central Business District prompted emergency crews to evacuate nearby residents and close a stretch of O’Keefe Avenue and Lafayette Street Saturday night (Dec. 14).

The distressed structure is a three-story art museum and office building at 938 Lafayette Street, at the corner of O’Keefe Avenue. New Orleans police and fire units were called to the scene around 8 p.m., and residents of the Paramount Apartments across the street were evacuated as a precaution.

A bent door frame on the first floor was visible from street level.

New Orleans Fire Department spokesman Capt. Edwin Holmes, said the building had undergone some recent repair or restoration work, but the extent was not immediately known. Holmes said the brick facade of the building at the weight-bearing corner of O’Keefe and Lafayette had crumbled to the pavement, cracks and shifts in the building were visible, a forward buckle at the corner of the building was prominent and that “the structural stability has been compromised.”

The NOFD requested a city inspector evaluate the structure and asked the building’s owner to send its contractors to the site to begin mitigating the danger of a wider collapse.

“We’re not sure how badly this building is compromised,” Holmes said. “It’s a very dynamic situation and right now we’re more concerned about the safety of the immediate area and getting everyone out safely.”

The New Orleans Police Department said it provided traffic control in the area and closed O’Keefe Avenue to vehicular and pedestrian traffic from Girod Street to Poydras Street. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic will remain closed in a one-block radius of the building indefinitely, officials said, spanning Lafayette Street from Rampart Street to Baronne Street in the other direction.

Crews from Entergy were also called to the scene to assist with gas and electrical mitigation, NOFD said.

Holmes said officials were concerned that the weight-bearing corner of the building had “started to buckle,” an indication that a collapse could be imminent. He said other nearby buildings were at risk because the distressed structure is three stories tall and could send debris onto a field 1½ times its height if it falls.

Holmes said the building across the street that houses the Maypop restaurant and Paramount Apartments, as well as the Civic Theater next door on O’Keefe, was at risk until the building is mitigated.

“NOFD is going to stay here until someone is here to mitigate,” Holmes said. “We can’t have traffic because a bus or a large vehicle, just the vibrations could cause more bricks to fall or a possible collapse. We’re trying to get everyone evacuated from the immediate threat of collapse, but not everyone (in the apartment building) was home. Some people just go back and find out.”

The mixed-use building houses the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, The Helis Foundation John Scott Center, the Immigration & Nationality Law Group and the accounting firm Whiteside and Simms, according to online records.

Holmes said there were “few if any” people in the building when NOFD arrived and it was currently unoccupied.

“We are asking that this area of ​​downtown be avoided for the time being,” Holmes said.