By Robert Dean
Guest Columnist
Architect Deborah Gans once said about blight, “If you have five empty lots on a block, the whole block collapses.” Everywhere in America, there are empty buildings, even in some of the hippest cities like New York and San Francisco, let alone somewhere in flyover country. We all pass them and remember an old diner or a cool little suit shop that was around forever, and then, once the store leaves, the space lies dormant for years.
When I lived in New Orleans, I hung out at a bar called Flannagan’s; it was my home base, a place to cry, to celebrate, and mourn. It was a special slice of the French Quarter. The bar was consistent; there were always folks hanging around 24 hours a day — not as a drunk den of iniquity, but as a safe harbor for varying shades of characters. But like all things, the landlords got greedy. They kicked the Flannagan family out and had pie-in-the-sky plans to open their own little slice of heaven. The problem was, the art of obtaining a liquor license in the Crescent City isn’t as easy as slapping a crisp $100 on the barrel head. Only so many are issued — and Flannagan’s had two. So now, thirteen years later, the spot still sits empty — because greed always takes the house.
Recently, in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, the 9,000-square-foot corpse of a Family Dollar store began operation as the New Orleans Free Store, where residents can pick up clothing, furniture, food, books, and household goods — for free. The building also hosts STI testing, basic medical care, food distribution, art classes, punk shows, and roller skating. Founder Dan Bingler worked out a deal with the property owner: the organization uses the building rent-free, pays the utilities, and maintains the property until the owner is ready to redevelop it. That arrangement turns blight into something people actually need.
Marseille offers an even more radical version. After a McDonald’s shuttered in the working-class northern part of the city, former employees, activists, and residents occupied the dormant building. They transformed it into L’Après M, a food-distro hub feeding more than 2,000 families a week. The long-term vision was a community-owned “fast-social-food” restaurant with prices tied to income, free meals for undocumented residents, and jobs restored to the neighborhood. A dead McDonald’s became more useful after McDonald’s bailed on working people.
But for a lot of building owners, they’d rather let a building rot. Why bother letting some kid open a store or giving a chef cheap rent to kick off their new idea when it’s easier to throw your hands up?
Here’s the thing: the tax code doesn’t necessarily reward landlords for letting buildings rot, but it can make waiting remarkably tolerable. Depreciation, deductible carrying costs, and the tax consequences of selling can soften the financial pain of vacancy while the surrounding neighborhood absorbs the eyesore.
Rents are too high. Too many commercial buildings sit empty. And there are dreamers in every town wishing they could open that coffee shop or used bookstore. San Francisco fought back. Voters approved Proposition D in March 2020 with 69.8 percent of the vote, above the two-thirds majority required. It taxes storefronts left vacant more than 182 days a year, starting at $250 per street-facing linear foot and climbing to $1,000 a year after that. More cities need laws like this. Let people open their small businesses. Everything can’t be a bank, a used car lot, a CVS, or a Starbucks.
Whenever I’m back in New Orleans and walk down St. Phillip, I pass where Flannagan’s was and remember standing out in front, chopping it up with weirdos and friends alike. And as it sits empty, it’s a scar on my heart. I loved that place.
Thirteen years. My kid just hit that milestone on the 19th. But in bar years, that’s a kid who never got to learn which regular to avoid because they’d talk your ear off. Or which one would buy a shot on your birthday. That’s thirteen years of Tuesday nights nobody got to hoist a cold one for a lost friend, or scorned lover. Somewhere in New Orleans, there’s a bartender who’d have run that room better than anyone, and a crew of lost souls who’d have found each other there. Instead, there’s dust and a padlock. Gans was right: empty lots take the whole block down with them. But the reverse is true too. Open one door, and the block starts breathing again.
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