While the city of Fort Worth may not believe a new streetcar line will generate enough economic impact to justify continuing its development process, New Orleans businsses are embracing a new line:

Spurred by the future Loyola Avenue streetcar line,a local development firm plans to transform a sea of downtown parking lots into 450 apartments and 125,000 square feet of shops and restaurants that it calls the South Market District.

(RENDERINGS PROVIDED BY PETER MAYER)

Domain Companies plans to convert a parking lot-heavy section of the city near the Superdome into a mixed-use development featuring apartments and retail spaces. The project, which involves construction of four 8 and 14-story buildings along Girod between Baronne and Loyola, will be anchored by the new Rouses. Domain Companies plans mix-use development gallery (6 photos)

The Domain Cos., a New Orleans- and New York-based firm that developed successful mixed-income housing along Tulane Avenue, has four blocks of parking lots under contract in the area between Loyola Avenue and Baronne Street, Julia Street and Lafayette Street -- a largely empty area of downtown that was cleared in the mid-20th century to help increase automobile capacity downtown.

This development is very encouraging, since many that follow developments at NORTA were skeptical of the Loyola Avenue line. It's those very parking lots that created the skepticism; other than linking Union Passenger Terminal and Canal Street, there wasn't much else there. Not that tying the train station with the street rail system was a bad idea for the future, but the odds that lawyers would ride the streetcar to Civil District Court on Loyola Ave aren't that good.

This is looking much better for streetcar development!