The OIX online mar­ket­place, which launched ear­lier this month, facil­i­tates the buy­ing and sell­ing of Louisiana state tax cred­its.  The OIX will trade trans­ferrable cred­its in the film, dig­i­tal media, gen­eral and his­toric real estate sectors.

The state’s attrac­tive enter­tain­ment tax credit pro­gram already means big busi­ness in Louisiana — film­mak­ers invested $1.4B in Louisiana projects in 2011, a sub­stan­tial increase from the $900M invested in 2010, and projects based in New Orleans—“Hollywood of the South”— were a sub­stan­tial part of that invest­ment.  In 2012, Louisiana became the country’s third most-productive state for film indus­try behind NY and CA.

Cur­rently the state’s buy-back pro­gram offers $0.85/dollar on cred­its and accounts for 48% of the sub­si­dies — the new online exchange will help com­pa­nies sell­ing tax cred­its access to an increased com­pet­i­tive buyer mar­ket­place.  Not only will the OIX help facil­i­tate film com­pa­nies’ access to cap­i­tal, but also a film tax credit pur­chased by an in-state busi­ness can then uti­lize the sav­ings for rein­vest­ment locally.   In total, the OIX should help boost Louisiana’s and New Orleans’s attrac­tive­ness as the best place to do busi­ness in film.

Visit the OIX web­site here.

The New Orleans Busi­ness Alliance and act­ing U.S. Com­merce Sec­re­tary Rebecca Blank are pleased to announce a $1 mil­lion Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Admin­is­tra­tion (EDA) grant to the New Orleans Busi­ness Alliance to help fund the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of a strate­gic plan to boost busi­ness and job growth in the city.

“This $1 mil­lion EDA invest­ment in New Orleans is an exam­ple of the Obama administration’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing efforts that lead to long-term eco­nomic growth and job cre­ation,” said Act­ing U.S. Com­merce Sec­re­tary Blank. “The grant announced today to the New Orleans Busi­ness Alliance, which will help the Alliance iden­tify ways to sup­port exist­ing busi­nesses and attract new ones to the region, is part of EDA’s ongo­ing efforts to aide in eco­nomic rebuild­ing and recov­ery in the city and its sur­round­ing region.”

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First Upscale Down­town Out­let a Key Com­po­nent of New Orleans Retail Revitalization

The Howard Hughes Cor­po­ra­tion (NYSE:HHC) is pleased to announce plans for the rede­vel­op­ment of River­walk Mar­ket­place into an upscale out­let cen­ter – The Out­let Col­lec­tion at Riverwalk.

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