GOP plan to end historic tax credits would hurt New Orleans, developers say
A walk through the Central Business District and Warehouse District provides spades of proof that what is old is new, especially when it comes to New Orleans real estate development.
The trendy Ace Hotel bustles inside a nine-story Art Deco building that used to house a furniture store. The NOPSI Hotel nearby converted the city's old utility headquarters, which was built in 1927. Years before those projects, developers turned the nearly century-old Hibernia Bank building on Gravier Street into apartments.
Those renovations, and dozens more like them in New Orleans, have a common thread -- tax credits. Namely, the federal historic tax credit, the incentive that has promoted the rehabilitation of old buildings nationwide for 40 years.
Last week, as House Republicans unveiled a plan for tax reform, the future of that credit suddenly lurched into uncertainty. As it stands, the GOP plan would end the program, which currently offers a 20 percent tax credit for qualifying renovations of historic structures.
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