Radio station WWOZ is negotiating to sign a long-term lease for a new home to be located on the entire fifth floor of The Shops at Jax Brewery, a prime location at 600 Decatur Street overlooking the French Quarter and Mississippi River.

As readers of OffBeat know, WWOZ has been looking for a new permanent home for a while, and more urgently since the station’s plans to move to a property at 717 St. Charles Avenue were shot down by the Board of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (the Foundation).

The St. Charles Avenue property that WWOZ wanted to relocate to is a three-story, $2.375 million renovated turnkey property in the Central Business District. According to The Times-Picayune, the property was deemed by some members of the NOJHF Board as being “physically too far removed from more ‘culturally relevant’ parts of the city associated with its jazz roots.”

WWOZ is a non-profit, member-supported station that is owned by the Foundation—also a non-profit entity. However, each non-profit has its own board of directors, with some overlap on boards between both ‘OZ (Friends of WWOZ) and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. Some of the ‘OZ Board wanted the Foundation to purchase the St. Charles Avenue building on WWOZ’s behalf.

The radio station currently occupies the entire second floor at 1001 N. Peters Street, where it has been located for the past 18 years, post-Hurricane Katrina. WWOZ’s home had been in an historic “kitchen” building (the “treehouse studio”) in Armstrong Park, which was not only inadequate but was seriously damaged by Katrina and other hurricanes since 2005.

Post-Katrina the station moved its facilities to the building in the French Market (it’s located in the same property as the French Market Corporation, which controls the leasing of that building). In recent years, the station says it has outgrown the N. Peters space, and has also said that the rental space is in dire need of repair—thus the search for a new permanent home.

One wonders why the Foundation board would not approve a purchase of the St. Charles Avenue property for WWOZ, as it seemed to be great location to serve the station’s needs. It appears that some Foundation board members would prefer that the station return to Armstrong Park, which is presumably more “culturally relevant” than a property on St. Charles Avenue. WWOZ was scheduled to move out of the North Peters space by August 1, but with the refusal of the NOJHF Board to buy the St. Charles Avenue property—thus leaving WWOZ in the lurch—the French Market Corporation has extended their lease through the end of October.

I don’t understand cultural relevance argument for a return to Armstrong Park: WWOZ itself creates its cultural relevance, not the building or location from which it operates.

WWOZ Treehouse Studio. Photo: Closer Walk With Thee, Jordan Hirsch

Armstrong Park—which also encompasses Congo Square—contains the long-abandoned Municipal Auditorium which needs tens of millions of dollars to remediate, in addition to costs of renovation and bringing it back into service. It certainly isn’t possible for WWOZ (or anyone else, for that matter) to relocate there without a massive rebuilding of the Auditorium and its surrounding property reconstruction. Plus, the old “kitchen building/treehouse studio” in the Park that WWOZ occupied for many years prior to Katrina (for a nominal rental fee) is literally falling into ruin, as is Perseverance Hall (see my last blog). So there is no place currently for WWOZ in Armstrong Park and if Armstrong Park is the only place for WWOZ to relocate to be “culturally relevant,” the station is going to be waiting a very long time.

So there is literally no viable space for WWOZ to operate, and there probably won’t be—even assuming that the city finally decides to refurbish the Municipal Auditorium, or the other crumbling buildings in the Park itself or approves and works with a developer to recreate the Park. I’d give it a minimum of five years or even more, knowing how slowly anything happens in New Orleans. That doesn’t help ‘OZ now for sure.

The Foundation owns ‘OZ’s license, and also funds the station annually in the high six figures, according to WWOZ’s 990 tax form (which is publicly available). According to 990 records, WWOZ has a substantial reserve from operations. But since the Foundation owns the station’s license (thus WWOZ itself), substantially funds it and allows ‘OZ to have a lucrative association with the Festival itself, their board also has the final say on what happens to WWOZ, including how and where it relocates. The Jazz Fest, also owned by the Foundation, produces a lot of revenue every year for both the Foundation and for WWOZ. The station benefits from WWOZ member donations, fundraisers, and sells and collects revenue on its sales of Brass Passes to the event—no matter where it’s located. WWOZ has a large presence at the Fest through its hospitality tent, where it is the only entity allowed to broadcast Jazz Fest music from the Festival and has re-broadcast performances from the Jazz Fest, which has been used to promote the station’s “Festing in Place” events during the COVID pandemic. WWOZ has built an outstanding reputation and reliable funding. Why shouldn’t it have its own building? Why not pay a mortgage note, and acquire an asset for the radio station (or the Foundation) instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rental space?

But the bottom line is that although WWOZ could potentially afford to purchase the property on St. Charles Avenue, it cannot make a move without the approval and sanction of the Foundation, its owner.

New home for WWOZ? Jax Brewery. Photo: Highrises.com

The proposed new space for the WWOZ home on the fifth floor of Jax Brewery is roughly 7,000 square feet and is a prime space for the station, being located in a visitor-dominated area. It also has several terraces that overlook the French Quarter and the Mississippi River, and has adjacent parking for the many volunteer WWOZ deejays who provide the content for the station. So it’s a great location, and probably will command a reasonably high rental rate (but I also presume it’s not culturally relevant!). But is it only temporary? If WWOZ can afford to pay considerably higher rent for this premium location, wouldn’t it have been more financially prudent for the Foundation board to approve WWOZ’s purchase of a property? Or even purchase it for the Foundation? Isn’t it better to have the station’s occupancy cost go towards a purchase of a property asset, rather than throw money at a lease arrangement?

As Beth Arroyo Utterback, WWOZ’s executive director, told the Times-Picayune regarding the Jax location: “It’s a world class spot for a world class station and it’s overlooking the Mississippi River.” Yes, it is, but it’s only a temporary solution. It’s unfortunate that infighting over where the most long-term “culturally-relevant location” is that’s causing both the Foundation and WWOZ to have to make decisions that could affect the station’s (and the Foundation’s) long-term viability. If the only culturally relevant location for WWOZ is in Armstrong Park, the Foundation board has to think about what is actually best for the station, not only now—when ‘OZ is desperate for a new location—but into the future.