NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Considering the recent slew of economic development projects announced by the state has bypassed New Orleans, it wasn’t surprising city officials were excited last week by the prospect of reopening an amusement park.New Orleans, struggling to regain the pre-Katrina economic status quo, which was no shining light, has had few such moments as manufacturing, petroleum and the financial services industry withering before the storm have been little heard-from since.The highest-profile deal with commercial impact has been a state-brokered one that keeps the New Orleans Saints in town through 2025 and obligates the state to lease space from Saints owner Tom Benson in a high-rise largely idled since Katrina.Last week’s flourish was about a plan to reopen the Six Flags theme park, under ownership of a Baton Rouge-based company and with Nickelodeon branding. The Viacom Inc. unit isn’t putting up any money and, if the project is finished, will be paid licensing fees for the cable network’s trademarked name and characters.But the project, estimated to cost $165 million to $170 million, currently depends on the sale of $100 million in Gulf Coast Opportunity Zone bonds. With the recession going, another project — the revival of the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the Superdome — is on a long hold, unable to find buyers for $225 million of the tax-exempt bonds.Bond markets are one problem. But there’s another that long predates Katrina and credit market meltdowns and has been blamed for New Orleans’ economic malaise: city politics.Proposals to revive the park have sniping going on between Mayor Ray Nagin and City Council president Arnie Fielkow, who haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye on anything lately, including Fielkow’s successful effort to block the mayor’s plan to buy a vacant oil industry office building for a new City Hall.Miffed, the mayor at least temporarily pulled the plug on a proposed public-private partnership to redo the city’s anemic economic development efforts.Fielkow, a potential mayoral candidate next year, recently took a city delegation to the Dallas area to look at another idea for the Six Flags park — the conversion into a Big League Dreams complex. That company operates nine recreational sports complexes in the United States that offer places to play various sports. The parks are free and generate revenue by charging sports groups for league and tournament use.But Nagin contends the deal is solely for the Nickelodeon park. Fielkow says there’s no reason why both couldn’t succeed at the site.Although the mayor said that no public money is involved in the Southern Star deal, the city is still trying to refinance $15.2 million in outstanding federal loans from a decade ago when the site was turned into the original Jazzland theme park, a monumental financial failure that landed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.Six Flags Inc. picked up the lease and the park and, in a measure of the park’s success, said after the storm that it would not return.The city is suing Six Flags, but that action is on hold because of Six Flags’ own recent bankruptcy filing.In the meantime, every other corner of the state seems to be enjoying economic development announcements that have nothing to do with tourism: Shaw Group’s plans to build a nuclear reactor parts plant in Lake Charles, a French company building a specialty chemical plant in Plaquemine, the revival of a chicken processing plant in Farmerville and ConAgra Food’s planned sweet potato processing plant near Delhi.Despite the recession, steelmaker Nucor Corp. is buying land in southeastern Louisiana for a possible pig iron plant and a startup auto company known as V-Vehicle Co. wants to build a futuristic fuel-efficient vehicle in Monroe. All told, there could be thousands of jobs.Back in New Orleans, if the third time is the charm, maybe the Nickelodeon park will work, though it certainly won’t turn around a moribund economy.At a minimum, it would eliminate a certifiable eyesore in eastern New Orleans in the form of what’s left of Six Flags.Beyond that, questions remain even if all the financing is obtained. SpongeBob SquarePants likely has his work cut out for him.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]