NEW ORLEANS – (Realty News Report) – HRI Properties, a New Orleans-based firm formerly known as Historic Restoration Inc., has retained the services of investment banking firms, indicating that the real estate company may file an IPO to take the company public, according to Bloomberg News.
Years ago, HRI, founded by Pres Kabacoff, became a leader in the expanding trend for redeveloping old warehouses into loft apartments.
In addition to its urban residential portfolio, HRI has sizable hotel holdings with properties in Texas, Louisiana, the West Coast and across the nation – and it has developed more than 5,000 apartment units and 4,000 hotel rooms, all told.
The firm redeveloped many old buildings in New Orleans’s Warehouse District, Mid-City, the Central Business District, Lower Canal Street, Algiers and the St. Claude Corridor.
Kabacoff described his vision for development in an interesting book that came out in 2016.
“What brought me to HRI was a belief that historic buildings, with big windows, high ceilings, St. Jo brick and pine floors, located near the city center, would make the most attractive apartments in New Orleans. I was excited about playing a role in taking a neighborhood in despair – the Warehouse District – and bringing it back to life,” Kabacoff writes. “As HRI progressed, I felt we were on a course for a broader mission. Our company had the ability to lead the revitalization of older cities. That became our stated mission. We define that as: ‘revitalizing cities by creative diverse, vibrant and sustainable communities.’”
The book, “Revitalizing Cities: The HRI Vision” – written by Kabacoff and HRI’s Eddie Boettner and Tom Leonhard – was published by University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press ($44.95).
Architect Andres Duany, founder of Congress for the New Urbanism, wrote this comment for the book jacket: “HRI builds difficult projects the hard way – by caring for the city and its people while keeping an eye firmly on the profit line. This alchemy was responsible for most of the places we now love. This book is evidence that one outfit at least still knows how to do it.”
The book includes case studies of a number of buildings HRI has redeveloped in New Orleans: The Cotton Mill, American Factory, Redemptorist Apartments and Bywater Artist Lofts, to name a few.
July 16, 2018 Realty News Report Copyright 2018