The former Bohn Ford building on South Broad Street — a century-old landmark in Broadmoor that operated as one of the few remaining auto dealerships in the city until the 1990s — has been purchased by the local nonprofit that has leased the building since it was renovated in 2019.
In a deal that was finalized last week, the fundraising arm of Odyssey House of Louisiana purchased the 43,000-square-foot property for $8 million. The deal included a cash payment to the ownership group and the assumption of more than $1.2 million in outstanding debt owed to the state, according to court records filed in Orleans Parish.
The deal will give Odyssey House, which is the largest addiction treatment and recovery provider in Louisiana, sole control over the building and enable the organization to further its mission, Odyssey House CEO Edward Carlson said in an interview Monday.
“It was always a part of our long-term plan to purchase the building,” said Carlson, who doesn’t expect anything at the building to change under the new ownership structure.
The Bohn building is the second New Orleans location for Odyssey House, whose headquarters are located on North Tonti Street, and its fifth facility in the state.
“Odyssey Health will just keep doing the services we’ve been providing for the community since we opened,” Carlson said. “Our goal is to make sure we have a good, secure place to provide services to the community.”
The building was purchased by the fundraising arm of Odyssey House, called the Homer Foundation, from a partnership that included Odyssey House, the Gulf Coast Housing Partnership and the real estate firm operated by the family that owns Rhodes Funeral Homes, which is located around the corner from the building.
“There was never any intention for Gulf Coast or the Rhodes family to continue to own the property,” Carlson said. “Our intention was always to develop the building into something used for drug treatment purposes.”
Long local history
The Bohn Ford building was constructed in the 1920s and designed by Emile Weil, a New Orleans architect known for designing the Saenger Theatre. At the time, the building, on the edge of Broadmoor and Gert Town, was an emerging area in the growing city with small factories, light industry and new neighborhoods nearby.
By the 1990s, when the Bohn family shuttered their dealership, demographic patterns had shifted and most auto dealers had moved out to the suburbs.
Staff file photo by Ric Francis-8/4/95. Old Bohn Ford building on South Broad Street in New Orleans.
The Rhodes family purchased the building in 2005, with plans to convert it into a mixed-use complex with restaurants and three floors of office space. Katrina struck just days later.
In 2013, they began exploring new possibilities for the building, eventually connecting with the Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, which develops affordable and mixed-income housing, and Odyssey House.
In 2017, the group teamed up and embarked on a nearly $18 million overhaul, which essentially involved rebuilding the entire interior of the fire-ravaged structure, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, while also preserving as much of the original exterior as possible.
The Bohn Ford building at 2700 S. Broad Street was sold this week with the new owners looking to turn it into an office building and have Odyssey House as an anchor tenant in New Orleans, La., Friday, Dec. 8, 2017.
Though 4,000 square feet of space was initially reserved for other tenants, Odyssey House has been its sole occupant since it was completed in 2019. Today, the building houses 144 beds for patients, a pharmacy and a federally qualified health center.
State funding from the Disaster Community Development Block Grant, new market and other tax credits allocations, and loans from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority helped cover the cost of the project. Odyssey House and the Rhodes family also contributed capital to the project.
Gulf Coast Housing Partnership did not respond to a request for comment.
Past and Present
Reopening the Bohn building in 2019 was part of a larger plan to revitalize the area on South Broad Street and Washington Avenue. Prior to the Bohn redevelopment, other enterprises moved in across South Broad Street, including Laurel Street Bakery and the Propeller Incubator.
In the years since, little else in the area has changed.
For Odyssey House, however, the building has been a boon to the agency, enabling it to serve nearly twice as many patients as it once did in a city that has been hard hit by opioid addiction.
Carlson said the organization’s growth will continue. The health center’s location on Tonti Street is currently working on the last phase of a development project that should add close to 110 beds to that facility, Carlson said.
The Bohn Ford building at 2700 S. Broad Street was sold this week with the new owners looking to turn it into an office building and have Odyssey House as an anchor tenant in New Orleans, La., Friday, Dec. 8, 2017.
