Tulane University's School of Architecture and Built Environment is turning a 24,000-square-foot, three-story building at 1833 Polymnia Street into a new graduate education hub, with capacity for up to 120 students, faculty and staff in the heart of Central City. The building, constructed around 1900 and once used as a department store and warehouse, sits just blocks from the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard corridor and is expected to open for classes in fall 2027.
According to New Orleans CityBusiness, Tulane will serve as the building's primary tenant under a 10-year lease with an extension option, while Gulf Coast Housing Partnership retains ownership and is overseeing the state, local and federal approval processes, including permitting and historic preservation reviews. Construction is slated to begin this fall, with completion planned for summer 2027. The design is being led by CCWiv and Colectivo, and the finished space will include a large studio, classrooms, a lecture hall, research and advanced fabrication labs, meeting rooms, offices, a student lounge, a historic preservation lab, an outdoor fabrication space and a large event hall.
A Building With History, Preserved Facade Intact
The structure once served as a department store and warehouse. As part of the renovation, the project preserves the building's facade and incorporates four large exterior support beams that have braced its south side for more than a decade. Per the CityBusiness report, the Louisiana State Historic Preservation Office and the New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission expressed approval and enthusiasm for the project's preservation and reuse approach, according to Dean Iñaki Alday.
Alday, who has led Tulane's architecture school since 2018, said the dedicated facility will provide a unique graduate student experience in urban contexts and will enrich research and community engagement initiatives, per the same account. Kathy Laborde, president and CEO of Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, said the project will bring new life to the historic building and help educate architects, designers, preservationists and developers.
Supplementing, Not Replacing, the Uptown Campus
The Central City hub does not replace Richardson Memorial Hall, Tulane's historic uptown home, which reopened in March 2025 after renovation and expansion work that ran from 2021 through 2025, including a 15,000-square-foot addition led by Trapolin-Peer Architects, according to Tulane School of Architecture. Instead, the new facility supplements Tulane's existing footprint. The school officially expanded its name to the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment in March 2025, a shift that e-flux reported reflected growing multidisciplinary degree offerings in urban design, landscape architecture and preservation.
The school has continued to broaden its multidisciplinary offerings, according to Tulane's own accounting. The university's Historic Preservation Program is also part of its multidisciplinary offerings.
Ties to the Small Center and the O.C. Haley Corridor
The new hub will enable greater collaboration and sharing of fabrication resources with the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design, located at 1725 Baronne Street, which remains at its existing location. Founded in 2005, the Small Center has worked with New Orleans nonprofits and community organizations for about 20 years, according to the Small Center for Collaborative Design.
Jiarra Rayford, president of the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard Merchants & Business Association, said the project could generate additional foot traffic and economic activity for corridor businesses. Gulf Coast Housing Partnership met with neighborhood businesses and nonprofit organizations, and the merchants association provided project feedback as part of that outreach, per the CityBusiness account. Tulane is also working on a transportation service to the facility, with the university shuttle set to begin service in fall 2027, and the hub will provide off-street parking.
Part of a Larger Corridor Investment
Gulf Coast Housing Partnership and its development partners have directed more than $210 million into real estate, affordable housing and commercial developments along the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard corridor since 2006, according to Biz New Orleans. That includes H3C, a mixed-use development completed in 2024 with Alembic Community Development that added 192 affordable apartments and a health clinic on the former Brown's Dairy processing site; the development also received Fitwel certification.
The graduate hub arrives as Orleans Parish has lost more than 28,400 residents between 2020 and 2025 amid housing affordability pressures and rising insurance costs, ranking the parish among the fastest-shrinking counties over 100,000 residents in the country, Hoodline previously reported. City leaders have prioritized targeted housing and land-use initiatives to counter that population loss, a backdrop that frames the significance of continued investment along the O.C. Haley corridor.
