Magazine Street's Local Shops Keep Crossing the Street

"We are honestly proud to be a part of keeping a New Orleans original on this block," Adrienne Casbarian told New Orleans CityBusiness in October. She was talking about Mignon Faget, the jeweler that spent 27 years at 3801 Magazine St. and announced a move to a temporary storefront across the street, inside Magazine Court at 3806. The new gallery was scheduled to open Oct. 30 with live music and champagne from 4 to 6 p.m., after the old gallery closed Oct. 26 through 29 to prepare.

Mignon Faget's move crosses one street, and that kind of short move is the story on the stretch of Magazine between Peniston Street and Napoleon Avenue. Local businesses here are mostly relocating, not closing. Whose building they land in decides which side of the street they end up on, and increasingly which block.

Every move on this stretch is a short one

When a national brand signs a lease, a local tenant usually moves a door or a block away.

1. Degas Gallery left the building Reformation now occupies at 3909 Magazine and moved to 3819 Magazine St., NOLA.com reported. Reformation opened on Oct. 30, 2025, as the Los Angeles brand's first Louisiana store.
2. ESOM Art, the contemporary gallery run by New Orleans artists Tony and Tracey Mose, moved out of a nearby building its owner planned to combine and expand. It reopened at 3905 Magazine St., next to the Le Labo deal.
3. The corner of Magazine and General Taylor, home to local boutique Pilot and Powell for nine years, is now Tecovas at 3901 Magazine St.
4. Mignon Faget is moving from 3801 to 3806, taking the Magazine Court space New Orleans fashion designer Sue Sartor had used before.

Mignon Faget has been moving up and down this street for a long time. The company was founded in 1970 and opened its first store in Riverbend. In the 1990s it moved into a former Hibernia Bank building in the 4300 block of Magazine, and in 1999 it opened the 3801 gallery in a restored 1896 building. The Magazine Court space is its third address on Magazine Street.

The building owner picks the tenant

The common thread in all four moves is a change in who owns or controls the building. In September, a local investor bought the roughly 5,000-square-foot building at 3801 for about $2.5 million, after Mignon Faget waived its right of first refusal to buy it from longtime owner Adam Marcus. The two sides describe the lease talks differently. CEO Maghan Oroszi said the company "accepted everything that was asked of us." Eugene Schmitt of Newmark, who represented the buyer, said the ownership offered "several fair and creative ideas," including a possible jewel-box retail building facing Peniston Street. Schmitt told CityBusiness that the next tenant at 3801 will be a "regional brand," with an announcement expected once the lease is final.

One block up, investor Peter Wilson's Oxlot Capital bought five Magazine Street properties in 2025, four of them in the 3900 block. Those buildings now hold Reformation, the Le Labo lease, ESOM Art and Tecovas. Wilson told NOLA.com he wants to preserve the buildings' history while adapting them for "modern-day retailers and restaurants."

Rent explains why these leases tend to go to national brands. NOLA.com reported that demand from national retailers has pushed some lease rates on this stretch above $50 per square foot. The pink double shotgun at 3938 that Hill House Home took over was advertised at $65 per square foot for 2,000 square feet, one of the highest asking rents in the market. "When you talk about retailers who can pay real rents, it's usually nationals," broker Casey Burka told the paper. He called the 3900 block "the main center point for nationals when they come here."

Some owners are holding space for local tenants

Local landlords are using the same tool in the other direction. Richard Dragisic and William Brockschmidt, owners of the Sud antique store, have bought four properties in the 4000 block, across Constantinople Street from the national-brand cluster. They include the former Izzo's Illegal Burrito and the former SnoWizard SnoBall Shoppe, and the owners' stated goal is to keep space available for local businesses. The former Izzo's at 4041 Magazine is being renovated for local menswear store George Bass. Dragisic told NOLA.com the narrower tenant pool has made the corner sno-ball stand harder to fill, because "we turned down a lot of, whatever you call them, chain sort-of things."

Magazine Court works the same way at a smaller scale. CityBusiness describes it as a commercial property with several local businesses, and when the Sartor space opened up, its occupants offered it to Mignon Faget. The local tenants that stay on these blocks are the ones whose landlords have decided to keep them.

Not everyone on the street sees the national brands as a threat. Varsity Sports owner Jenni Peters, who bought a building in the 5700 block in 2023 after 12 years of renting in the 3400 block, told NOLA.com the national stores are "only a plus," because "it's kind of the cumulative attraction of everybody." Degas Gallery owner Cybèle Gontar, who made one of the short moves herself, also supports the mix, with one condition:

"The fabric of our city is our old buildings, so when we turn certain properties over to national chains, we want to be careful that they're respectful of the architecture as much as they can be."

Why the newcomers chose old houses

The national tenants keep picking converted homes, and their business model is the reason. Warby Parker, Indochino, Marine Layer, Free People and now Hill House all built their brands online. Retail experts told NOLA.com that these companies treat physical stores mainly as a way to win new customers, not as their main sales channel. A storefront like that has to give people a reason to walk in, and a raised shotgun on a walkable block does part of the work.

Tecovas shows the approach. The Austin-based company, which has more than 60 stores, put its 3,000-square-foot shop in a converted residential building designed by the firm IA. Inside are decorative millwork and lighting modeled on historic gas lanterns, along with free boot shines, leather branding, boot stretching and hat fitting. Hill House, the New York brand behind the Nap Dress, picked the former Stoney Clover Lane shotgun at 3938 for its first Louisiana store, and its store directory now lists the New Orleans location with regular hours.

Schmitt described the 3800 to 4000 blocks to CityBusiness as "a beautiful, walkable area that still feels distinctly New Orleans," and "one of the first major shopping areas" visitors reach when heading Uptown from the French Quarter or Warehouse District. That old-New Orleans look is what the national brands are paying for.

The stretch, block by block

Walking from Peniston toward Napoleon, here's where the recent arrivals and moves stood in late October.

The last two entries show local businesses still choosing the 4200 and 4300 blocks. Magic Collective, Mamta Melwani's online shop selling South Asian-influenced clothing, accessories and home goods, is opening its first storefront at 4212. Honey's is coming back to the narrow shotgun between Casamento's Restaurant and Ms. Mae's, the building where Honey's founder Elizabeth Hess once worked as a barista and manager at HEY Café and where she was later offered the lease. NOLA.com reported that the space opened up after Undergrowth Coffee closed earlier in 2026. The plan calls for light breakfast, lunch and dinner, seasonal cakes like matcha raspberry, and a back patio. Hours are set for 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, with no alcohol for now. Axios New Orleans still had it under "coming soon" on Oct. 20, after an early-October target.

If you're walking farther toward Audubon Park, the city's sidewalk and curb-ramp project on Magazine between East Drive and Nashville Avenue started Oct. 14. It's moving block by block, through-traffic stays open, and completion is projected for March 2027, weather permitting.

The next change to watch is the announcement of who takes 3801, the restored 1896 building Mignon Faget occupied from 1999.

If you'd like to talk through what the moves on these blocks mean for nearby properties, or what a Magazine Street address is worth right now, Ashley Nesser knows this stretch storefront by storefront. Let's Connect.