Thomas Richards watched the last transformer come off the roof of the old Clearview Mall in early July, the final piece of hardware standing between decades of retail history and the wrecking ball. He called it a big milestone. Inside, as he put it, the building was already down to "just slab and columns." What most coverage of that moment missed is that the mall had been coming down in a different sense for five years before a single piece of concrete cracked.
If you've shopped at the Target on Clearview Parkway, seen a doctor at Ochsner's building where Sears used to be, or grabbed a burger from Small Sliders at Veterans and Clearview, you've already been living inside the redevelopment. The demolition making headlines this summer isn't the start of Clearview's transformation. It's closer to the end.
The Wrecking Ball Was The Last Step, Not The First
Richards Clearview LLC, the family company that has owned the 35-acre property since it opened in 1969, announced a $100 million plan back in 2019 to turn the aging enclosed mall into a mixed-use development. What's easy to miss from outside is the order they chose to do it in. Rather than demolish first and figure out tenants later, the family spent years quietly building the replacement pieces around the edges of the old mall while it was still standing and still open.
Demolition only started once Zea Rotisserie & Bar, a tenant of more than 20 years, had somewhere else to go. The restaurant's new freestanding building in the parking lot cut its ribbon in late June, and crews moved into the old mall almost immediately after. According to reporting from nola.com, that demolition is expected to wrap by November, clearing everything between the Ochsner building, the Target, and the AMC theater, the three anchors that are staying put.
That last detail matters more than it sounds. Ochsner, Target, and the movie theater are not part of the teardown. If your errands run through any of those three, the mall closing has not actually interrupted your week.
What Was Already Built Before The Bulldozers Showed Up
Lay the timeline out and the pattern becomes obvious. Every major piece of the new Clearview arrived while the old mall was still standing:
- 2021: Regions Bank opened a branch in the parking lot, the first visible sign the property was changing shape.
- 2023: Ochsner cut the ribbon on a $115 million, three-story medical complex built on the site of the old Sears.
- 2023: Target completed its own $8 million renovation later that same year.
- 2024: Small Sliders, the Drew Brees-backed burger chain, opened at the corner of Veterans and Clearview.
- Late 2024: The Metro at Clearview, a $55 million, 270-unit apartment complex, welcomed its first residents.
- 2026: Zea Rotisserie & Bar relocated to its new freestanding building, clearing the way for demolition to finally begin.
Five years of construction happened before the part everyone is now calling news. The mall didn't sit boarded up waiting for a plan. It filled in around itself.
Why Nothing At Clearview Actually Closed
Plenty of American malls hit this same wall of declining foot traffic and end up as fenced-off shells for years, sometimes a decade, before anyone breaks ground on what comes next. Richards took a different approach: build the bank branch, then the medical building, then the apartments, then the new restaurant home, and only then take down the empty husk in the middle.
The practical effect for anyone who lives nearby is that Clearview never actually had a dead period. You could bank at Regions in 2021, see a doctor at Ochsner in 2023, move into the Metro apartments in 2024, and eat at the new Zea's this summer, all without the property ever reading as vacant or abandoned. The demolition happening right now is loud and visible, but it's clearing space that had already been emptied out functionally, not a working retail core.
Richards has said he still intends to add a hotel and more office space to the property, plans that stalled during the pandemic when demand for both dried up. He's also confirmed a lease with a national retailer for the redeveloped retail section, though he hasn't named the tenant. He expects to make that announcement in November, the same month demolition is projected to finish.
The Corner Isn't Acting Alone
Clearview isn't the only stretch of Veterans Boulevard drawing this kind of investment right now. Further west, near the Metairie-Kenner line, Gayle Benson's Benson Automotive Group opened a 37,000-square-foot Porsche New Orleans dealership this spring, one of only six Generation 5 Porsche facilities in the country. Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission president Jerry Bologna pointed to the sheer volume of traffic as the draw. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development estimates close to 40,000 vehicles pass through that stretch of Veterans every day, according to Fox8.
Near that same dealership, a shopping center has been filling in too. Surge Entertainment and Chuck E. Cheese both moved into larger, refurbished spaces. Pickles N Pins brought indoor pickleball to the center. The 7 Brew drive-through coffee chain opened there in 2025, and Ochsner recently added a clinic focused on patients 65 and older.
None of that is connected to the Clearview project directly, but it's the same corridor, the same traffic logic, and the same pattern of private capital moving into aging retail real estate along Veterans rather than abandoning it. Clearview isn't an isolated bet. It's one visible piece of a boulevard that's being rebuilt storefront by storefront.
What's Actually Left To Watch
The site is expected to reopen in the first quarter of 2028, according to both Fox8 and Axios New Orleans, which reported that renderings show an open-air layout with water features replacing the enclosed mall footprint. That's roughly eighteen months out from today. Between now and then, the things worth watching aren't dramatic: the November demolition deadline, the November tenant announcement, and whether the hotel and office space Richards has mentioned actually break ground once the retail section is further along.
For a corner of Metairie that residents have driven past for decades without much reason to stop, that's a meaningful shift. The mall spent five years quietly reassembling its most useful pieces before it ever touched the part everyone actually noticed.
If you've been watching this corner change and started wondering what that kind of investment means for property values nearby, or if you're weighing a move within Metairie or Old Metairie and want a read on the market that goes beyond a median price, New Orleans Luxury Living is a good place to start that conversation. Request a private consultation with Elizabeth McNulty when you're ready to talk specifics.
