VCC Foundation

The Foundation's charge is to support the Vieux Carré Commission in preserving and protecting not only the French Quarter's invaluable historic architectural heritage, but also its tout ensemble, or its quaint and distinctive character and ambiance. We pursue this mission in many ways, and on many fronts!

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Educational Programming
(initiated August 2018; ongoing)

After extensive research, planning, and fundraising, the Foundation has embarked on a multi-tier new education initiative that will teach people of all ages and backgrounds about the value of the French Quarter's architecture and how they can help preserve it. Our goal is to raise awareness of the French Quarter's cultural, economic, and historical value, as well as to concretely educate people about the nuts-and-bolts of architectural preservation. The program's objectives are:

• Preservation Education Events: To provide demonstrations and resources to French Quarter stakeholders that directly yields value to the district's distinctive character as well as educates the property owners and stakeholders on best practices for caring for their historic structure

• Vieux Carré Public Relations Campaign: To implement a strategic outreach and community engagement plan to increase the general public's awareness of the citywide economic and cultural significance of the preservation of the French Quarter

Vieux Carré Virtual Library
(initiated August 2015; ongoing)

In 2015, the Foundation initiated the development of an ambitious educational resource: an electronic archive of the VCC's priceless and irreplaceable historic collection of slides, photographs, property files, and other artifacts. The purpose of this project is to preserve these delicate physical archives from deterioration and natural disaster, while also making them freely available to the public online. Already, 44,000 historic slides and nearly 6,000 historic paper photographs have been scanned and linked to the properties they depict, every structure in the neighborhood has been painstakingly mapped in GIS, and every building's color rating and other major attributes have been identified and defined. In 2020, the Foundation will meta-tag these over 50,000 images so they can be searched by various keywords as well as scan the property documents dating back to the inception of the Vieux Carré Commission with Optical Character Recognition software so each individual document is searchable. In December 2018, we announced the inaugural release of the Virtual Library website, which connects the public to the inner archives of the VCC as an integrative educational and planning resource, at FrenchQuarter.nola.gov (or VieuxCarre.nola.gov).

Vieux Carré Design Guidelines
(completed August 2015)

One of the Foundation's biggest accomplishments is its complete overhaul and update of the Design Guidelines for the Vieux Carré Historic District, a guide for preserving and protecting the district's architectural and historical resources, which the City Council adopted in August 2015. This was a much larger and more comprehensive project than the lighting study that preceded it; it was intended to replace the 1986 design guidelines in their entirety. The new guidelines provide detailed information and illustrations to instruct property owners, design professionals, contractors, VCC staff, and the Vieux Carré Commissioners regarding appropriate exterior changes to properties within the historic district. The first edition was available for purchase in hardback book format consisting of 200-plus pages illustrated with 369 color photographs and 219 drawings; although this edition is now out of print, a second (revised) edition is currently in the works and slated to be completed in 2020. These guidelines are provided to the public free of charge online.

Exterior Lighting Design Guidelines
(completed April 2013)

The Foundation's first major project was to conduct a comprehensive lighting study of the French Quarter aimed at assisting the VCC in adopting new lighting guidelines. This project was designed to meet the needs of the Vieux Carré in regard to critical issues of security, pedestrian safety and aesthetics, not only for property owners, but also for the neighborhood's 9-million-plus visitors per year.

The old lighting guidelines created in 1986 had become obsolete in the face of modern and rapidly changing lighting technologies. The Foundation funded and completed the comprehensive study to provide property owners and VCC staff with prescriptive guidelines for the use of exterior illumination tailored to address the variety of building types and styles within the French Quarter, the tout ensemble of the Vieux Carré, and public safety needs, including optimal lighting for security cameras. The results of the study were incorporated into new state-of-the-art lighting design guidelines...