One of New Orleans’ finest and most unique buildings, Touro Synagogue sits on St. Charles Avenue as a gorgeous historical marker designed by the renowned architect Emile Weil. Completed in 1908, the structure is a true architectural gem. To ensure Touro’s future, revitalization of their carefully and lovingly maintained home is underway.

Woodward is currently serving as Construction Manager at Risk to deliver much needed upgrades and improvements to the education, administrative and community spaces on Touro’s campus. Working closely with Mathes Brierre Architects, Woodward provided preconstruction services throughout the completion of design to assist in aligning Touro’s budget, program, and schedule. During this phase, Woodward fostered collaboration by enlisting the support of key trades such as mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection to create value saving solutions and impart expertise to ready the design for construction. Woodward also provided highly technical Building Information Modeling services through design and into construction to aid in clash detection and facilitate these highly coordinated installation efforts.

Now into construction, the project team is working closely with Touro to deliver these improvements while the campus is open and operating as a religious and community space. Through careful consideration and coordination, the Woodward team is working to ensure minimal disruptions to Touro’s daily operations and promote the safety and security of their congregation with the additional personnel on site.

Known as the ‘Lifting the Sky’ Campaign, this project’s scope includes replacing over 30 year old flat roofs on the various adjoining structures, a full HVAC replacement and electrical upgrade to over 40 year old systems, an addition of an elevator in their education building to increase accessibility to the upper floors, relocation and addition of the current library, renovate and expand administrative office space, education space, bathrooms, and the lobby/pre-function space for better flow between the sanctuary space and social hall. Exterior restoration of the historic structure includes a significant tuckpointing effort, cleaning, and sealing of masonry.