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Former Navy base finally set for rebirth ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, arrive at the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner in Washington in 2023.
Son of Rob Reiner arrested in killings Filmmaker, wife found fatally stabbed at home
By The Associated Press/Los Angeles Times STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
The 20-acre former Navy base on the Mississippi River in the Bywater neighborhood has been closed since 2009.
After years of decay and false starts, $166M financing package unlocks affordable housing, tech space and riverfront potential BY ANTHONY McAULEY Staff writer
After more than 15 years of false starts and neighborhood frustration, the hulking former Naval Support Activity complex in Bywater is finally poised to transform from a deteriorating eyesore into a major affordable housing and technology hub. Construction on the first phase of the redevelopment — a $166 million project known as NSA East Apartments — is expected to begin in late January now that financing has been secured, according to Brian Gibbs, the New Orleans-based developer who is leading the project. A formal groundbreaking is planned for the end of next month. Once underway, the project will mark one of the most complex and ambitious rehabilitation efforts in New Orleans in years, converting a longblighted military property overlooking the Mississippi River into 294 housing units for roughly 800 residents, along with 37,000 square feet of retail space. The first phase of the project also includes a $50 million new technology startup incubator complex, and Gibbs has plans for a $100 million innovation center and nearby green space devel-
RENDERING PROVIDED By METROSTUDIO FOR BRIAN GIBBS DEVELOPMENT
The former Naval Support Activity New Orleans base will officially see phase one of its conversion start in January, with construction of 294 affordable apartment units and 37,000 square feet of retail space completed over the next two years. opment in the second phase. “We will not have to ask people to suspend disbelief anymore; they are finally going to see contractors at work,” said Gibbs, who took over the project last summer after its original developer, Joe Jaeger, was killed in a car accident. “We hope that will buy
us some credibility with the neighborhood, with renters, potential businesses for the retail space — all the stakeholders.” For Gibbs and city officials, the closing of the financing package has
ä See BASE, page 4A
LOS ANGELES — Rob Reiner, the son of a comedy giant who became one himself as one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation with movies such as “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally …” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” has died. He was 78. Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found fatally stabbed Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department on Monday arrested the Reiners’ 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, and booked him on suspicion of killing his parents. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers responded to the Reiner home about 3:40 p.m. Sunday. Detectives from the Robbery-Homicide Division “worked throughout the night” and took Nick Reiner into custody. Family friends told The Los Angeles Times that Rob and Nick Reiner got into an argument Saturday evening at a party at Conan O’Brien’s home and that many people noticed Nick acting strangely at the party. Nick Reiner, who had struggled with addiction for years, was living in a guesthouse on his parents’ property, family friends told the Times, and his mother had become increasingly concerned about his mental health in recent weeks. The family friends, who did not want to be identified because of the nature of the crime, said the Reiners’ daughter found her parents Sunday afternoon. Nick Reiner was taken into custody at 9:15 p.m. Sunday and booked at 5:04 a.m. Monday, jail records show. He is being held on $4 million bail. Rob Reiner had a five-decade-long film
ä See REINER, page 5A
Permanent gates eyed for Bourbon St.
FBI: Terror plot nets Lafayette-area arrest
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE
BY JAMES FINN
Staff writer
New Orleans officials are weighing a plan to install permanent gates along Bourbon Street, a measure they say will prevent a repeat of the deadly Jan. 1 vehicle-ramming attack that exposed serious gaps in the city’s homeland security measures. Public safety leaders presented the idea to New Orleans City Council members
WEATHER HIGH 61 LOW 53 PAGE 6B
on Thursday, nearly a year after Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed down and killed 14 people on the famous strip. Should the city move ahead with the plan, it would remedy a key flaw first discovered in its homeland security operation several years ago, but that Jabbar’s assault showcased to the world. Eighteen gates would be installed along Bourbon Street from Canal to St. Ann
Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
New Orleans Police Department Officer Justin Robert Fabre demonstrates the mechanism to lock the ä See GATES, page 7A barricades in place on Bourbon Street in October.
Federal authorities arrested a suspect over the weekend near Lafayette who they accuse of being in an extremist group and planning a New Year’s Eve attack, officials said Monday. The FBI director, Kash Patel, on social media said the Louisiana arrestee was part of a “radical subgroup” of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, a pro-Palestinian
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“anti-government” organization, prosecutors said. Federal officials also announced Monday the arrests of four alleged members of the group in Los Angeles who are accused of hatching their own bombing plot on the West Coast. The Louisiana suspect was “planning a separate violent attack,” Patel said, without naming the person on social media. It is unclear whether
ä See FBI, page 5A
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