Fore! Topgolf, Five O Fore golf-entertainment projects planned for New Orleans

The Five O Fore Golf driving-range project on Howard Avenue near Interstate-10, long stymied by ownership changes, the pandemic and a massive heist of construction equipment, is set to resume construction this month.

But by the time it opens to the public in about a year, a rival golf-entertainment project will also be nearing completion just a few miles away.

After a pre-pandemic project plan was scuttled, the Dallas-based Topgolf chain has secured the necessary city approvals to build its own high-tech driving range on land owned by the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in the new River District, project representatives said Wednesday.

Their complex is also set to open in late 2024.

Competition commences

Updates this week from the two development groups suggest that a competition for customers will soon be underway. Topgolf and Five O Fore Golf have the same business model, which combines driving ranges with food and beverage services and other indoor entertainment, and some local officials have questioned whether New Orleans is big enough for both.

Five O Fore developer Alex Xaio said Wednesday he is hoping to open by next October. His partners bought the project at the end of 2022 from Joe Jaeger, who previously had a deal with Topgolf rival Drive Shack to build a complex on the Howard Avenue site. Drive Shack ran into financial trouble during the COVID pandemic and pulled out last year.

The Five O Fore consortium is building to the same specifications as Drive Shack’s plan. They have partnered with Flite Golf & Entertainment, which provides “turnkey” projects similar to Drive Shack and Topgolf.

The plans were delayed in May when thieves stole $300,000 worth of custom-made steel beams and other materials, but Xaio said they have been able to proceed with site remediation, civil engineering, and underground work.

“We will receive our replacement steel by the end of October and the public will begin seeing above-ground construction in November,” Xiao said.

Meanwhile, Topgolf, which now has 70 locations in the U.S. and overseas, including one that opened in Baton Rouge in 2019 and one under construction in Lafayette, will build its 67,000-square-foot venue on Tchoupitoulas Street on land that is currently a large parking lot.

River District plans

The Topgolf complex will be part of the multi-billion-dollar River District development being built on approximately 50 acres of convention center-owned land.

In a presentation to the City Council in August, the River District consortium, which is led by local developer Louis Lauricella, showed the Topgolf complex next to the Pontchartrain Expressway at the northern end of the neighborhood, bounded by Tchoupitoulas, Melpomene and Annunciation streets.

Zachary Smith, a land development consultant for Topgolf, said Wednesday that Topgolf construction is set to begin by the end of the year after the project’s designs were approved by city officials.

The saga of the two rival projects has been running for several years, and involves a host of local developers and city and state politicians.

A Topgolf venue was originally proposed by the convention center’s management in 2019 but was shelved after Jaeger objected to a public-private project on prime riverfront land that would compete with his.

Gov. John Bel Edwards supported Jaeger’s view, and the Topgolf proposal seemed to be dead until it was revived earlier this year by the convention center and its development consortium.

Edwards, who will leave office this year, reiterated his objection when Topgolf was revived. However, local politicians, including Lesli Harris, who is the City Council representative for the district, has said she supports Topgolf and hopes both it and Five O Fore Golf can thrive.

Together, the two projects will cost about $100 million and create more than 400 jobs during construction and nearly twice that number when fully operational, according to the developers.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, whose district encompasses the sites of both of the planned golf-themed venues, sponsored a law this year that paves the way for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangements for the River District’s projects, though it’s not clear if Topgolf will apply for the tax break, which would have to be approved by City Hall and the City Council.

Xiao said Five O Fore also has negotiated a PILOT with the city as well as a deal to improve local roads.