‘Historic renovation and high performance’: Panel discusses energy infrastructure for former Charity Hospital building transformation

The vacant former Charity Hospital building offered many surprises to the architects and Tulane officials who walked through its empty halls amid Tulane's announcement of its planned redevelopment : a structure with remarkably "good bones," an incredibly well-preserved surgical theater, intact marble features and even a basketball court.

But more than the beautiful and resilient structure of the building, the most exciting discovery for the team behind the project has been the warm welcome the announcement has received and the hope it has inspired.

That vision of renewal was at the center of a discussion at the 2026 Tulane Future of Energy Forum featuring Patrick Norton, senior vice president, chief operating officer and treasurer at Tulane, and Andrew Chaveas, architect and director at Brailsford & Dunlavey.

The two discussed the university's plans to transform the historic, 1 million-square-foot building into a national hub of bioscience discovery and medical advancements with more than 650,000 square feet dedicated to Tulane education, health, research and innovation initiatives. The conversation was moderated by Ian Morrison, Tulane's vice president for public affairs and chief communications officer.

"Everybody wants this to happen and wants it to work, and that's been the great thing about the team and everyone you talk to," Chaveas said. "You don't always get a situation where everyone's trying to pull the boat in the same direction, and that has been the case here."

The project is the anchor of a $700 million commitment from Tulane in downtown New Orleans. The former hospital will serve as a new home for the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, the Tulane Innovation Institute, components of the School of Medicine and interdisciplinary laboratories for 700 researchers.

Plans also call for the remaining sections of the building to be used for a mix of residential living, a food hall, community gathering space and other retail purposes.

"This iconic building ... will be an engine for discovery," Norton said. "What happens inside that building is just as important as bringing the building back to life."

The transformation of the building will preserve the spirit of Charity Hospital, Norton said, which for generations represented care, training and public health service in New Orleans. It will also retain and repurpose significant features of the landmark. Chaveas highlighted the team's historic preservation efforts, guided by their work with the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office to protect the building's history while adapting it for modern laboratories and educational spaces.

Because Charity was built before widespread reliance on air conditioning and other energy-intensive systems, its original design provides a strong starting point for improving energy performance, he said.

"Historic restoration and high performance are not in contrast; they actually work well together," Chaveas said.

He added that the team expects to make relatively minimal changes to the building's limestone exterior, primarily to improve airtightness and address humidity, while using new technology to make the building's systems more efficient.

Chaveas also cited reports from the American Institute of Architects indicating that carbon emissions can be reduced by 50% to 75% through building reuse.

"The most sustainable building is the one that's already there," he said.

Laboratories require reliable power, cooling, ventilation and environmental controls, Norton said. A failure in any of those systems could jeopardize years of research.

"Reliability and resilience are therefore fundamental to the mission of what we're doing here," he said.

To prepare for hurricanes, flooding, extreme heat and possible grid disruptions, the project team is incorporating redundancy into the design, in which backup systems and fail-safe measures are in place for important energy systems. Some infrastructure will also be located inside the building, and energy will be pooled on higher floors to help protect critical systems from harsh conditions.

The project will also include stormwater infrastructure hidden beneath a redesigned central courtyard, similar to that currently being installed in the Unified Green project. The courtyard will serve as a gathering place for visitors and residents, while the infrastructure below it will help drain rainwater and improve the site's ability to withstand weather events.

"Resilience isn't theoretical for us," Norton said. "Our real goal is to protect our critical research and building systems."

The project is designed to bring researchers, students, faculty, entrepreneurs and community partners into close proximity with wet labs, dry labs, computational labs and an AI center.

"What happens when you bring researchers and innovators together is something they call the 'bumpability' factor," Norton said. "Great ideas get sparked. What happens then? Great ideas become discoveries; discoveries become scalable, sometimes commercialized."

The project is expected to turn the site into a major anchor for Tulane's downtown development and draw thousands of people into the area. Once complete, it is expected to house more researchers in one building than anywhere else in the Gulf South, Norton said.

That activity is expected to spur additional housing, retail, restaurants and other businesses, helping create a more connected downtown neighborhood between Claiborne Avenue and Loyola Avenue.

The revitalization of Charity alone is expected to make a $1.2 billion impact on the state's economy, creating a one-time impact of approximately 7,300 jobs and producing $10.5 million in state tax revenues. Once completed, the project is anticipated to create more than 2,400 new permanent jobs and make an annual impact on the state's economy of $530 million.

A decade from now, Norton said, he hopes the former Charity Hospital building will no longer be described as a redevelopment project but as a key part of the city.

"I hope people think of it as a place where New Orleans does world-class research and world-class instruction, trains talent and improves health," he said. "And that it really is the catalyst for a thriving downtown."