NEWS

By Kim M. Braud | June 10, 2026

NEW ORLEANS — The football stadium and baseball complex at Joe W. Brown Memorial Park sit near the center of one of the city's largest public recreation properties, on land in New Orleans East that has been in public hands since 1959.

The park is operated by the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission, the city agency responsible for recreational facilities and programming across New Orleans. NORD lists the park's amenities on its website alongside its other properties.

The land

The Cultural Landscape Foundation records that the park was donated in 1959 by Dorothy Dorsett Brown in honor of her late husband, the oilman Joe W. Brown. The Foundation puts the parcel at 163 acres and notes that the eastern half became the Louisiana Nature Center in 1980, later merging with the Audubon Center in 1994.

The money

The athletic complex visible in these images is roughly fourteen years old in its current form.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl, one of the founding partners in the work, reports that Mayor Mitch Landrieu dedicated Victory Field, a turf football field, on January 10, 2012, and that the park was slated for an overhaul of more than $23 million by the end of that summer. Nike, the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Brees Dream Foundation are named as founding partners on the field, with a recreation center and eight-lane track to be funded by Nike and others.

The most recent publicly announced investment came from a different direction. WWL-TV reported in August 2025 that State Rep. Jason Hughes directed $600,000 to the park and to other NORD facilities in New Orleans East. NORD Foundation chairman Ernest Price Jr. told the station the money would replace the park's Victory Track and go toward other improvements, with some directed to uniforms and equipment.

Capital improvements to New Orleans parks can draw on several distinct sources: the City's capital budget, voter-approved general obligation bonds, state appropriations, federal grants, and private philanthropy. At Joe W. Brown, the two largest publicly announced investments of the last fifteen years came from the last two categories.

What the bonds may reach

Parks and recreational facilities are among the assets covered by the infrastructure bonds New Orleans voters authorized on November 15, 2025. The Bureau of Governmental Research, in its analysis of the propositions, described the $415 million City Infrastructure proposition as covering streets, bridges, buildings, public safety facilities, and parks and recreational facilities, out of $510 million in total borrowing authority across three propositions. BGR noted in April 2026 that the City had begun moving forward with bond issuances and published guidance for residents on what to watch.

Which specific projects draw on those proceeds is being determined now. The Capital Projects Administration prepares a report on the NORD capital program for each monthly NORD Commission meeting, listing projects by name, council district, dollar amount and phase.

Photo captions

Caption 1. The baseball complex at Joe W. Brown Memorial Park, photographed from above on June 10, 2026. Aerial image by CreoleSky Aerial.

Caption 2. The football stadium at Joe W. Brown Memorial Park, photographed from above on June 10, 2026. Aerial image by CreoleSky Aerial.

By the numbers