City's plans for research center on Holy Cross campus still faces major hurdles

The Louisiana Recovery Authority cleared the way Tuesday for the city to use $2 million to purchase the hurricane-damaged Holy Cross School site in the Lower 9th Ward.

Dr. Kevin Stephens, the city's health director, wants to create what would be called the National Center for Community Health and Research on the site.

But once the city buys the 12-acre site using federal recovery dollars, it still must count on receiving competitive grants to pay for repairs, construction of new buildings and the creation of the proposed center.

The city has applied to the National Institutes of Health for $30 million to $40 million in federal stimulus money, and officials are also counting on as much as $10 million from a United Nations Humanitarian Foundation grant to turn the historic Holy Cross site between Deslonde and Reynes streets into a groundbreaking health research facility.

A Catholic school for boys, Holy Cross School had been an anchor in the Lower 9th Ward since 1879. The school relocated to Paris Avenue in Gentilly after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of the neighborhood. The college-style campus suffered extensive structural damage.

Stephens said that as soon as the property is sold, Health Department staff will start working in trailers that are already set up on the site.

At the 15-acre riverfront tract, Stephens envisions a nationally recognized center where researchers would pursue studies that address the needs of poor, inner-city communities. Instead of merely studying the effects of a vaccine, for example, they would offer a proven treatment to community residents and study why some refuse to take it.

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