New Orleans Hyatt to re-open

The Hyatt Regency in New Orleans is being completely rebuilt and renovated five years after the storm Hurricane Katrina hit the city and is expected to open in 2011.

During the storm, the hotel —located near the city’s hospitals and medical facilities—was turned in a refuge for the grief stricken community, who, along with the rest of the US, have been holding vigils to remember victims of the disaster.

Hyatt International vice president of sales and marketing, South West Asia said: “The storm in 2005 took the lives of so many people and left so many others without homes and jobs, it’s horrific, and it is only right that we look back and pay tribute and honour both the victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina.”

The reopening of the new Hyatt Regency, which is located next to the Louisiana Superdome in the heart of the city’s central business district, is part of an economic development plan designed by New Orleans Regional Planning Commission and New Orleans Downtown Development District to revialise New Orleans’ central business area over the next few years.

Entire districts were wiped out by the floods, claiming thousands of lives and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Five years on and reconstruction and renovation work still continues.