New taxes in downtown N.O. proposed for ‘hospitality zone’

With the French Quarter and other downtown areas poised to receive $40 million in infrastructure improvements in the run-up to next year’s Super Bowl XLVII, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and tourism leaders want to raise the hotel-motel tax, as well as a sales tax on downtown dining, to maintain the improvements and promote the city. As The Times-Picayune reports, the extra money—which largely would come out of visitors’ pockets—would amount to an estimated $16 million annually, officials said Tuesday at a French Quarter stakeholders’ meeting. About $11 million would be spent by the city’s two main tourism marketing agencies, with the rest earmarked for the upkeep of streets and other spending authorized by a new state-sanctioned board. Landrieu strongly supports the creation of a “hospitality zone” bounded by the Mississippi River, the Pontchartrain Expressway and Claiborne and Elysian Fields avenues. Under a package of bills pending in the current session, such a designation would allow the city to levy special taxes in the area, which stretches from the Warehouse District to the Seventh Ward, and use the revenue to provide extra sanitation, police and other services in those neighborhoods. Under the proposals, the hotel-motel tax levied at properties citywide would rise from 13% to 14.75%. The sales tax on food and beverages consumed in restaurants and bars within the hospitality zone would rise from 2.5% to 2.7%. Read the full story here.