Riverboat Louis Armstrong closes, on sale for $16m | Enterprise Information

Three years after the newly renovated Riverboat Louis Armstrong opened for enterprise on the foot of Poydras Road as a jazz membership and leisure venue, the sidewheel steamboat aimed on the high-end conference enterprise has shut down and is up on the market.

Warren Reuther Jr., CEO of Hospitality Enterprises New Orleans, which owns the Louis Armstrong, mentioned the pandemic’s impact on the town’s conference enterprise took a toll. He had been relying on the sector to assist the three,000-passenger vessel.

“The timing with the pandemic actually didn’t assist,” mentioned Reuther, who’s itemizing the boat for almost $16 million. “The boat was constructed and designed to be a conference boat for entertaining conventioneers and that didn’t occur. So, we determined to attempt to promote it and see what sort of gives we get.”

“It might reopen,” he added. “We have now all of the Coast Guard necessities so as, and it’s able to go. But it surely’s unlikely.”

‘Vegas glamour’

The Riverboat Louis Armstrong was in-built 1995 to copy a nineteenth century sidewheel steamboat. It was operated by Tropicana Leisure as a riverboat on line casino in Indiana till 2017, when the gaming firm opened a land-based on line casino as a substitute.

New Orleans Paddlewheels, which is a part of the bigger Hospitality Enterprises household and likewise operates the 800-passenger Creole Queen, acquired the vessel that yr for an undisclosed worth and spent tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} renovating it.

When it was rechristened because the Riverboat Louis Armstrong in late 2019, it was designed to draw top-flight musicians and bands, boasting new electrical, lighting and audio methods, with particular acoustic tiles and upscale bars and lounges.

The primary-floor deck was designed to be subdivided for assembly areas and dinners. The third ground was outfitted to accommodate weddings and banquets.

Based on its providing memorandum, its honest market valuation is $31 million, regardless that it’s only listed on the market for $15.99 million, and it’s in “first-class situation” with heaps of “wow components” and “purely Las Vegas glamor.”

Riverboat revival

When Reuther acquired the vessel in 2017, the town was within the throes of a hospitality business explosion and tourism firm operators have been reporting a nostalgia-fueled need for river cruises.

His wasn’t the one tourism firm investing in new riverboats.

New Orleans Steamboat Co., which operates the Natchez, additionally introduced plans that yr to launch a brand new vessel on the river. In the meantime, American Queen, which operates high-end in a single day cruises upriver from the Crescent Metropolis, christened a second riverboat in New Orleans in the summertime of 2017.

However the pandemic decimated the town’s hospitality sector for a lot of 2020, forcing vessels to shut for months. Vacationers and vacationers have largely returned to the town. However at the same time as some massive conventions have come again, the sector hasn’t but rebounded to pre-pandemic ranges.

“We see the drive-in vacationers on the Creole Queen,” mentioned Reuther. “It’s doing properly. However the conventions aren’t again.”

‘An enormous metropolis’ wanted

Officers with the Ernest N. Morial Conference Middle acknowledge the conference sector is sluggish relative to 2018 or 2019, although they are saying the attendance ranges for 2023 are at 85% of 2019 ranges.

“2023 has lengthy been forecasted as a problem for the vacation spot market and the main focus turning extra on the short-term enterprise,” mentioned Tim Hemphill advertising and marketing director for the Conference Middle.  He added that “2024 is shaping as much as be the identical.”

Given the market uncertainties, Reuther mentioned it made sense to place the Louis Armstrong up on the market.

“It must be in a giant metropolis that may assist it — a Chicago or New York or Miami,” he mentioned.