The Planning Commission will consider rezoning the former Hotel Lincoln in downtown east for mixed-use, an essential step in the redevelopment of the historic 68-year-old building.
Developer Solomon Carter, who paid $400,000 for the four-story building in 2017, wants to update the former hotel on Eddie Robinson Sr. Drive, renovating it into 12 one-bedroom apartments and 2,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
Carter has been talking with restaurateurs from Baton Rouge and New Orleans to find a tenant for a 1,200-square-foot ground level space, saying he’s open to someone bringing back the Hotel Lincoln Dining Room.
If approved by the commission at its April meeting, the rezoning issue will go before the Metro Council in May. Carter doesn’t anticipate problems and says he expects to start construction in June, with a projected opening in early 2020.
While original figures estimated the redevelopment of the hotel—abandoned since the 1980s—would cost $1 million, Carter says current estimates are closer to $1.6 to $1.8 million.
C. Carl Westerman, with New Orleans-based CCWIV Architecture, is the architect for the project, while Carter’s Amelia Fine Construction is the contractor.
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