HOW ABOUT SOME HARD DATA FROM SHREVEPORT DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

Shreveport has the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) which is a city agency funded by an extra ad valorem tax on properties within a defined downtown district.
 
The New Orleans Downtown Development District (DDD) is a similar organization in the Big Easy.
 
The NOLA DDD just released is Q3 2025 Market Report . The report provided hard data in several categories.
 
Downtowns’ Physical and Economic footprint

  • 9,4 million square feet of Class A office space

  • 476 retail businesses

  • 98 hotels with 22,680 rooms

  • 8 coworking spaces and 9 businesses incubators/accelerators

  • 6,370 apartments and condominiums

  • A residential population of over 4300 residents.

 
Retail Market

  • Downtown retail inventory of 5.3 million square feet

  • Downtown retail vacancy rate of 6.3% with an

  • Average asking rent of $26.46 per square foot

  • 11 active retail projects totaling 56,894 square feet.

 
Office Sector

  • Total inventory of 16.7 million square feet

  • 9.4 million square feet of Class A space

  • Overall vacancies fell to 12.1%, and Class A vacancy declined 19.2%

  • Under development five active office projects totaling 607,103 square feet with one 500,00 square-foot project.

 
Housing Market

  • 6370 units in inventory

  • Vacancy rate of 7.5%

  • Under development 8 multifamily projects with 365 units

 
Hospitality Market

  • Hotel demand fell to 1.1 million cumulative nights (down 8.5% year-over-year)

  • Occupancy averaged 50.9%

  • 16 active hotel projects totaling 1,116 units.

 
This report is important for New Orleans.
 
A similar report is needed for Shreveport from the DDA. Admittedly, the numbers will be much less than NOLA, but all the same a report is needed for government officials, private developers, bond rating agencies and the general public.
 
DDA has a low profile in the downtown community and the city as a whole.  DDA has an upcoming tax renewal in the fall of next year and a report of this nature would provide a meaningful benchmark to determine if the DDA should continue to exist in 2027.