New Orleans Hyatt rises from Katrina's destruction

Right After Hurricane Katrina

The New Hyatt Regency New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Hyatt Regency New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, reopens Tuesday after a $275 million rebuild that creates a new business model for the downtown hotel.


Sports fans who swarm the adjacent Superdome and New Orleans Arena still figure in the model — the New Orleans Bowl, Sugar Bowl, BCS college football championship and NCAA men's Final Four basketball championship are set for the Superdome over the next several months.


But the hotel's rebuild also envisions carving a niche in the city's convention business.


Developers say they will target smaller conventions that don't need the space offered at the city's giant riverfront convention center. Such conventions, they and tourism officials say, often go to other cities where the space they need is more readily available.


Poydras Properties Hotel Holdings, which includes a subsidiary of Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp., bought the site in 2007 for $32 million and reconfigured the 32-story building to 1,193 rooms and suites and 200,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

Several restaurants are planned, including one expected to open in December by renowned New Orleans chefs John Besh and Brian Landry.

There is little resemblance to the original Hyatt, which opened in 1976, a year after the Superdome.

"The transition is from bricks and mortar to contemporary," Hyatt Regency general manager Michael Smith said. "One of the words we don't use in this transformation is renovation."

The hotel is part of a complex centered on the Superdome that was heavily damaged by the hurricane.

The Superdome was rebuilt in a recently completed $336 million overhaul, while an office tower abandoned after the storm was bought by New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson and refurbished. Also in the complex are the New Orleans Arena, home of the NBA's New Orleans Hornets, and a projected entertainment district.