Historic New Orleans Property Firm Kabacoff Considers NYSE IPO
Pres Kabacoff, co-founder of Historic Properties Inc. of New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS – HRI Properties, the New Orleans-based company formerly known as Historic Restoration Inc., has engaged investment banks as it explores a possible initial public offering, Bloomberg News reports.
Founded by Pres Kabacoff, HRI was an early leader in converting historic warehouses into loft-style apartments, helping to popularize adaptive reuse in urban neighborhoods.
Beyond its residential conversions, HRI has built a significant hotel portfolio with properties in Texas, Louisiana, on the West Coast and elsewhere across the United States. To date, the company has developed more than 5,000 apartment units and roughly 4,000 hotel rooms.
In New Orleans, HRI’s redevelopment work includes projects across the Warehouse District, Mid-City, the Central Business District, Lower Canal Street, Algiers and the St. Claude Corridor.
Kabacoff described his development philosophy in a 2016 book that explains the firm’s mission and approach.
“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 creating diverse, vibrant and sustainable communities.’”
The book, Revitalizing Cities: The HRI Vision, coauthored by Kabacoff with Eddie Boettner and Tom Leonhard, was published by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press.
Architect Andrés Duany, founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, praised the company on the book’s 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 volume offers case studies of several HRI projects in New Orleans, including the Cotton Mill, American Factory, Redemptorist Apartments and Bywater Artist Lofts, among others.
