Regional Updates: Catch Up on the GNO, Inc. Sunday Night Highlights

20 Years Since Hurricane Katrina: Action in the Face of Adversity Recap with Video

November 24, 2025

GNO, Inc. Sunday Night Double-Header – School House Rocks + Convention Center Hotel Rises

Education Gains, Across the Region and State
Education is the foundation of economic development.  With this in mind, we are pleased for a truly strong year for public education across the Greater New Orleans region:
  • New Orleans public schools earned a B for the first time ever under the current rating system, and the first time since the return to local control in 2018
    • The city continued a four-year trajectory in which Orleans has grown more than twice as fast as the state
    • The NOLA-PS cohort graduation rate climbed to 82%, exceeding peer districts and marking meaningful progress from last year
    • Several open-enrollment high schools earned an A-ranking, including Frederick A. Douglass, Edna Karr, and Eleanor McMain
    • Overall, the share of students attending A-rated schools in Orleans rose from 14% to 23%, while the percentage attending D or F schools dropped from 19% to 8%
  • Jefferson Parish also posted another year of gains
    • The district earned a B for the second straight year, improving its score by more than three points and placing several schools among the highest-performing and most improved statewide
    • Ten schools moved up a letter grade, including Marie B. Riviere Elementary, Paul J. Solis Elementary, and J.D. Meisler Middle
    • Importantly, no Jefferson Parish school earned a failing grade this year, a dramatic shift from 2020, when the district had nine
  • Across the broader GNO, Inc. region, districts in St. Tammany, St. Charles, St. John, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines all improved or held steady
    • Plaquemines and St. Charles each earned A ratings
    • St. Tammany held steady at a B
  • Statewide performance score rose to 80.9, the highest in more than a decade
You can learn more here:
Omni Headquarters Hotel Approved at the Convention Center
Despite being one of the top convention destinations in the United States, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans has never had a large, adjoining “headquarters hotel,” a sine qua non for a modern, large convention center.  That is about to change, as the Exhibition Hall Authority last week approved a development and ground-lease agreement with Omni Hotels & Resorts to build a soaring, new 1,000-room hotel next to the Center.
  • The planned hotel will include approximately 1,000 rooms, about 100,000 sq ft of meeting space, multiple restaurants and bars, a rooftop pool deck, a destination spa, and a parking garage
  • The site is across Convention Center Boulevard, on the plot currently occupied by the “Sugar Mill” event venue, in the Warehouse District; Mississippi River Heritage Park will not  be impacted
  • Construction is expected to begin in 2026, with the hotel opening in 2029
  • Omni is committing to providing all of the private capital for the project
  • The project is expected to generate about 1,400 permanent jobs, produce around $214 million annually in economic impact, and add roughly $15 million+ in annual tax revenue for state and city
“We’re at a moment in time where we’re facing very strong competition from other markets for convention business and for supporting events,” said Convention Center CEO Jim Cook in an interview on Tuesday. “This additional investment begins to put us back where we belong from a competitive standpoint.”
For the Convention Center, the headquarters hotel is considered critical to competing with cities such as Austin, Nashville, Orlando, and other convention destinations. Leaders say the lack of a connected hotel has limited the city’s ability to host large-scale conventions and national trade shows. The hotel is expected to include multiple restaurants, meeting rooms linked directly to the center, and ground-floor retail to strengthen the connection between the riverfront and the Warehouse District.
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