What’s up with New Orleans Smoothie King Center renovation? | Business

Eight months after unveiling a nearly half-billion dollar plan to renovate the Smoothie King Center and turn the surrounding area into a new entertainment district, New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson and state leaders are locked in negotiations with one big sticking point: who pays, and how much.

The two sides are trying to close a $200 million funding gap on the estimated $420 million project, according to three sources familiar with the negotiation. And the clock is ticking. A renovated Smoothie King Center is considered critical to keeping the Pelicans in New Orleans, though their current lease doesn’t expire until 2029.

Also pressing, according to Saints and Pelicans officials and some officials with the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, the state-sponsored agency long known as the Superdome Commission that oversees the arena, is showing the NFL that the project can be completed before 2031 as New Orleans bids to host Super Bowl LXV that year.

The NFL is expected to announce the 2031 host early next year and New Orleans is vying with several other cities for the big game.

“Hosting a Super Bowl requires much more than a football stadium,” said Saints and Pelicans Sr. Vice President for Communications and Broadcasting Greg Bensel. “It requires quality venues, hotels, and space for activities throughout the week. The 2031 opportunity strengthens the case for this investment.”

The Smoothie King Center talks have taken place almost daily in recent weeks. They are heating up now that state and city officials have reached terms with developers on a separate project aimed at boosting the city’s hospitality industry, the 1,000-room Omni Hotel near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

But at least one elected official who will likely play a key role in whatever funding plan is hatched, Senate President Cameron Henry, a New Orleans-area Republican, has questioned why a publicly funded renovation of the Smoothie King Center is needed to win the Super Bowl.

“I don’t understand what a basketball arena has to do with a football game,” Henry said last week. “I know that’s what they’re saying. But you can only use the ‘we need it for the Super Bowl’ so many times.”

Saints, Superdome Commission and state funding

The project is expected to use a combination of public and private money. 

Benson has pledged to personally contribute $150 million, according to Bensel, who described the pledge as a “personal commitment to modernizing a state-owned asset while securing the Pelicans’ long-term future in New Orleans.”

Meanwhile, two sources involved in the negotiations said Gov. Jeff Landry has said he would support putting $75 million towards the renovations in the state’s construction budget over two fiscal periods, provided state lawmakers get on board. Landry declined to comment.

The bulk of the remaining funds, however, would then need to come from the Superdome Commission, which is struggling to determine how it will fund the roughly $195 million portion that remains.

The commission is a quasi-public agency with the ability to issue bonds. But it’s currently saddled with some $520 million in debt from the $500 million renovation to Caesars Superdome, which was completed in late 2024, and other projects.

The two sources familiar with the negotiations say the commission is exploring various taxing measures, including creating a special taxing district or dedicating a portion of existing taxes to the project, that would require legislative approval in the 2027 session.

LSED Board Chair Robert Vosbein said in a prepared statement that “The LSED is working to reach an agreement on the renovations for the Smoothie King Center that makes financial sense for all parties involved.”

He said there is no time frame for when the deal will be done and declined to comment on the specifics of the negotiations.

Bars, restaurants, new Pels training facility

The Smoothie King Center renovation would be the most extensive overhaul of the arena since it opened in 1999, something officials say is needed to bring the building up to modern NBA standards.

It would feature the addition of 2,155 lower-level seats, upgraded concourses, new gathering spaces and a redesign of the surrounding campus — including two parking lots adjacent to the arena along Le Rouge Street, Champions Square, the old New Orleans Center and the Macy’s parking garage.

Updated renderings of the project provided by the Saints Organization last week show images of Champions Square and the newly imagined entertainment complex. They also include one noteworthy addition to plans released earlier this year: a new training facility for the Pelicans that would be built on the site of the shuttered Macy’s.

The facility would be surrounded by bars and restaurants, adjacent to a stage, and could eventually expand into what Bensel called a “billion-dollar sports, entertainment and civic district with restaurants, retail, entertainment, office space and welcoming public spaces.”

But securing the Pelicans’ long-term future is “the foundation for making that vision possible,” he said.

Putting the deal together

The dynamic in the high-stakes talks is playing out in much the same way as did the public debate earlier this year over the Omni New Orleans.

Both state and city tax dollars were included in the deal with the Texas-based developers who built the luxury high-rise. Among the arguments boosters used in lobbying for the state support was feedback from the NFL after the 2025 Super Bowl.

New Orleans, the league said, was a great host city but needs more high-end hotel rooms and an upgrade to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport if it wants to host future Super Bowls.

In January, Benson and Landry flew to New York to meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to assure him of the city’s interest in hosting the game and that the Omni, the city’s first new high-rise hotel in 40 years, would deliver on the rooms. Separately, they told him, the airport was working on its own expansion.

Henry, who balked at supporting the Omni incentive though later got behind a revised deal, said “using the Super Bowl excuse for the hotel” worked once, noting that “we eventually came up with a good deal.”

“But to say ‘we need to fix the basketball arena for a football game’ is not the best way to sell this in Baton Rouge,” he said.

The NFL has not explicitly said that a renovated arena with a surrounding entertainment complex is a condition of winning Super Bowl LXV, according to several people familiar with the negotiations. But the league has said that it would enhance the city’s competitiveness, not just in hosting the Super Bowl but in landing other events as well.

“Investing in the arena and the larger district around it is something that pretty consistently comes up in our talks with the NFL and other major events,” said Walt Leger III, president of New Orleans and Co., the city’s tourism marketing group. “Being able to maximize the space that you have is critical.”

Benson, Landry and Goodell discussed the project at the Saints’ game in Paris last month, according to Bensel.

“A renovated Smoothie King Center would strengthen New Orleans’ Super Bowl hosting package, and that benefit was communicated to state leadership,” said Bensel.

New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, through a spokesperson, said she supports the project, though declined to provide specifics.

“Renovating the Smoothie King Center and making strategic improvements to the surrounding downtown area are critical to our long-term economic development,” the statement said.

Businessman Shane Guidry, a close Landry advisor and confidant who is involved in the talks, said he thinks the state will eventually support some sort of deal but that “it has to make sense for everyone involved.”

“The state doesn’t make a lot of money at the Smoothie King Center by the Pelicans because people don’t support it,” Guidry said. “They don’t come into town early to spend the night and stay the weekend like they do for football so we have to make sure the facility is not going to lose money.”

In 2025, the facility recorded an operating loss of $11.5 million, according to the Louisiana Legislative Audit. The Caesars Superdome, by comparison, finished the year with a $13.5 million profit

Bensel said team leadership understands Guidry’s concerns but countered that the state is better off with the Pelicans than without them.

“The franchise supports jobs, generates tax revenue, brings customers to local businesses, and creates opportunities for private investment,” he said. “Those benefits extend well beyond LSED’s budget and must be considered alongside the full public costs when evaluating the state’s return.”