[StBernard] Ground breaking at the Fred Sigur Civic Auditorium in St. Bernard

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Thu Jun 18 21:16:00 EDT 2009


St. Bernard Parish breaks ground on Fred Sigur Civic Center

Celebration of growth one of multiple planned ground breakings



St. Bernard Parish President Craig P. Taffaro Jr., along with a host of
officials, celebrated the ongoing prep work at the Fred Sigur Civic Center
with a Ground Breaking ceremony in front of the stage inside the auditorium
on Wednesday, June 17, 2009.



Wednesday morning President Taffaro, local, state and federal officials
gathered to mark the work leading to the complete restoration of the
3,000-seat auditorium where he promised next spring's graduation ceremony
for Chalmette High School would be held as well as the seasonal, early
summer dance revues.



"Hopefully, in 10 short months, we will be hosting our first formal event
with the Chalmette High School's graduation in 2010," President Taffaro
said. "The uniqueness of this facility is the way it was built. There's
hardly a bad seat in the house."



The three-story auditorium at 8245 W. Judge Perez Drive in Chalmette has
been the site of numerous dance revues, Mardi Gras balls and community
events. About 1,500 can easily be seated on the floor with seating for
another 1,500 in the upper two floors of horseshoe-shaped balcony wings.
Work is being done on the inside to prepare for the renovations that are
expected to cost more than $3 million in mostly FEMA funding.



Since President Taffaro took office 18 months ago, more than 160 FEMA-funded
Hurricane Katrina recovery projects have been started, including this week's
ground breakings that also included $1.5 million in work on the 33-acre Los
Islenos Museum Complex in St. Bernard Village and more than $500,000 in work
on Violet Park 2 in Violet, both featured in ceremonies on Tuesday.



For the Civic Center project, Perez is the firm in charge of the design
work. Doug Landry is the project manager for CDM, which provides oversight
for all FEMA-funded projects, and Rick Stierwald of the St. Bernard Parish
is the resident inspector.



For more information about Recovery and Growth in St. Bernard Parish, visit
our website at www.sbpg.net
<https://mail.sbpg.net/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.sbpg.net/> .



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