Tulane center: From Mardi Gras to coastal research

Mardi Gras floats eventually will be replaced with coastal science research as plans for a new Tulane University riverfront campus in New Orleans move forward.

The Tulane University Riverfront Campus for Applied Coastal Sciences and Engineering will be located on the east bank, just north of the Crescent City Connection on property Mardi Gras World has rented from the university for years as well as a small piece of property leased from the Port of New Orleans.

The project’s first phase will begin on the downriver side of the property, with later phases moving upriver, said Matthew Chatfield, a research assistant professor at the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research and project coordinator for the new riverfront campus.

“New Orleans is a coastal city and increasingly a coastal city,” Chatfield said.

What exactly the new research center will offer, how large the campus will become and what it will look like — all these will in large part be determined by what architects come up with in the next few months in response to a request for proposals.

Chatfield said the request includes a wish list of what the university would like to see, such as getting platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for green-building techniques.

However, what programs or services will be included in the first, second or future phases of construction will depend on how the architects develop their plans, he said.

“They’re going to tell us what’s possible,” he said.

The goal is that within 10 years, the entire half-million square feet of property will be part of the campus, ultimately displacing the Mardi Gras World facility but giving it time to find another location, Chatfield said.

“We hope to begin construction in early 2014,” he said.

Calls and emails to Mardi Gras World were not returned.

The new riverfront campus will be on the same spot where the university had planned several years ago to build a science campus called RiverSphere. That center was going to focus on river science, with an emphasis on generating hydroelectric power from the Mississippi River.

A number of private enterprises got interested in the concept, but after further study, it was determined that the location was not a good place for this kind of hydrokinetic energy production, so the plans fell through about two years ago, Chatfield said.

However, a $3 million Economic Development Administration grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce was still on the table and will now pay for construction of the first phase of the new coastal research center in the same location.

“Although the RiverSphere was very different in many respects, there were many similarities,” Chatfield said.

There will still be a degree program offered at the campus, which will also serve as a place of research, although many of those details are still being worked out. Instead of research about the river and its potential to generate energy, the focus will now be on coastal environment and restoration.

Although there are already many research organizations in the state with a focus on coastal restoration, such as the nonprofit Water Institute of the Gulf and LSU’s Coastal Studies Institute, Chatfield said the Tulane campus will seek to complement, not duplicate, current restoration efforts.