The Warehouse District Historic District

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From the early years of the 19th century to the present, this section of the Central Business District has been the home of businesses directly related to the commerce of the port and its support facilities. These have included retail and wholesale stores, cotton and sugar presses and warehouses, iron foundries and light manufacturing.

The earliest structures in the district are the combination residential and commercial buildings at 701-03 Tchoupitoulas Street, constructed in 1831 by the builder John Fitz Miller. Residential use was quickly to become a rarity in the area, with most of the buildings being built in the period between 1835 and 1860 serving strictly commercial uses. The elegantly detailed four story Greek Revival style warehouse at 448 Julia Street dates from the mid-1830s and illustrates the basic type that was to dominate. Other fine rows of Greek Revival style warehouses can be found in the 500 and 600 blocks of Tchoupitoulas Street, some with cast-iron ground floor columns.

In the late 1840s, the land between Commerce Street and what is now Convention Center Boulevard was opened for development by the city. These blocks are long and narrow in form, permitting multiple street entrances for the warehouses that were built in that area. The 800 block of Fulton Street still retains two outstanding rows of two story warehouses built between 1845 and 1855. In the later half of the 19th century, there was a slight decline in the number of buildings being built in the district, with the Italianate style structure at 201 Julia Street, built in 1885 being one the most impressive works of the period.

The early 20th century saw a shift in the scale of the buildings being built in the district, as well as the uses to which they were put. Serious manufacturing work was being introduced, with the former Gulf Bag Company building at 329 Julia being the first of this new breed. Built in 1906 of reinforced concrete, this structure has been converted to apartments, while retaining the large scale window openings and monumental forms of the former factory. At 700 South Peters Street stands the former Orleans Manufacturing Company Building, built in 1911 and designed by DeBuys, Churchill and Labouisse to house a casket factory. This structure, which occupies an entire block, is more ornamented than the Gulf Bag Company building, and has been converted to apartments. The district has experienced considerable renovation activity with an infusion of residential use through the conversion of former warehouses and factories into apartment blocks. With the continued expansion of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on the district's riverside, the Warehouse District has also seen the development of new hotels combining new construction with existing historic structures.

The district's character is defined by relatively low-scale masonry buildings built on the front property lines, with the larger structures dating largely from this century. These buildings are built side by side, with no setbacks from the property line or side alleys to separate them from one another.