Joseph Canizaro

Joseph Canizaro moved to New Orleans during the 1964 construction of the International Trade Mart. A budding builder and planner, he took on the 22-story Lykes Center, now the Loews Hotel, in 1966, and has hardly looked back since. He has systematically changed the New Orleans skyline, adding a cluster of high-rise office buildings on Poydras Street including the Texaco Center, a 32-story tower at 400 Poydras St., and the 36-floor First Bank and Trust Tower at 909 Poydras. Canizaro also deserves credit for the $500 million Canal Place complex on 23 acres adjacent to the World Trade Center, housing a 32-story office building, 250,000 square feet of shopping space and the 500-room Wyndham Hotel at the foot of Canal Street. Canizaro has built more than 10 million square feet of mixed-used developments, office buildings, luxury hotels and business and industrial centers, totaling well more than $1 billion. In his hometown of Biloxi, Miss., he’s developing a small $2 billion town, called Tradition, with l be a 4,800-acre, master-planned, sustainable community with homes, work places, shopping areas, corner grocery stores, schools, entertainment, medical services, recreation and cultural activities. Residents began moving in 2008. When complete, Tradition will include 15,000 residential units accommodating up to 40,000 occupants. Canizaro is a trustee and former chairman of the Urban Land Institute and has served on the Advisory Committee on Real Estate Development of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In addition, he was a member of the Business Council of New Orleans and the Tulane University President’s Council and was founder and co-chairman of the Committee for a Better New Orleans. Canizaro also founded the New Orleans chapter of Legatus, an international organization of practicing Catholic CEOs.