Stephanie Riegel
Stephanie Riegel follows how major business decisions in Louisiana translate into concrete changes for properties, projects and people, with a particular focus on high-value transactions and the way they ripple through local communities. She is a business writer at The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, covering the regional economy, corporate deals and market shifts since 2022. Her work combines deal-level detail with attention to who is affected, whether the subject is insurance, real estate, industrial projects or long-standing local businesses.
Insurance and Louisiana homeowners
Riegel examines the state’s homeowners insurance market through the lens of ongoing crisis and incremental improvement, asking whether lower premiums and easier access to coverage are durable or fragile gains.
In this coverage, she treats insurance not as an abstract financial product but as a basic condition for stability, linking rate movement and carrier decisions to the ability of residents to stay in their homes and rebuild after storms. She brings the same blend of policy context and human impact that runs through her writing on other regulated sectors and risk-heavy industries.
Real estate sales and development
A large share of Riegel’s reporting tracks the sale, redevelopment and financing of prominent properties, often where legal, financial and community interests intersect.
She has covered the planned sale of Metairie Towers through a U.S. Bankruptcy Court–supervised bidding process, explaining how multiple rounds of potential buyers and a public auction structure will determine the future of a 52-year-old condominium complex on valuable Metairie Road land. Her story on the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ $152 million sale of its Christopher Homes apartment portfolio to affordable housing developer Tredway detailed how the deal keeps roughly 1,600 low-income senior and disabled residents in place while promising up to $50 million in overdue renovations.
Riegel’s coverage of downtown office towers shows the same emphasis on who owns key assets and what they intend to do with them.
She has reported on Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson’s acquisition of the 36-story BankPlus Tower at 909 Poydras Street, describing how the high-rise joins a growing portfolio of downtown properties and will house her executive staff. Earlier work on investor Zach Kupperman’s purchase of medical office buildings on Poydras Street linked the transaction to broader ambitions for the emerging BioDistrict and plans to recruit new medical tenants.
Her reporting on the tower that houses DXC Technology has highlighted both the building’s sale to new owners and the difficulties of tech firms that received state incentives but then struggled to meet local hiring targets, prompting clawbacks.
She also follows riverfront and neighborhood-facing development, including the Batture project in Uptown, where developers are pursuing riverfront plans along the Mississippi while residents raise concerns about traffic and noise. In that work, she sets out the developer’s next steps and engagement promises while making clear what nearby homeowners worry about, keeping commercial ambitions and community impact in the same frame.
Corporate projects, industry and infrastructure
Riegel covers large-scale industrial and infrastructure initiatives, especially when they promise to reshape parts of Louisiana’s economy. Her reporting on Elon Musk’s SpaceX plan for a $100 billion rocket launch facility along the Louisiana coast lays out the scope of the project: multiple launch pads, a mission-control center, office buildings, power plants, a propellant factory and employee housing on marshland near wildlife refuges, with an aggressive construction timetable starting in 2027. She treats that story as both an economic turning point for a quiet stretch of coast and a high-stakes bet that will transform local land use and employment.
She has also described how the Port of New Orleans and New Orleans Public Belt Railroad are adopting AI-driven logistics tools to move heavy equipment for industrial projects more efficiently, pairing a customized program with a digital rail map to serve construction of AI data centers and a planned Hyundai steel mill.
In institutional coverage, she has written about the Audubon Nature Institute’s leadership transition, explaining how longtime hospitality executive Michael Sawaya was chosen by the board to succeed Ron Forman as president and CEO and situating the move within the city’s broader tourism and convention landscape. Her recurring appearances as a business reporter discussing topics such as the SpaceX deal and fuel prices on broadcast segments show her ability to translate complex deals and price dynamics for a general audience.
Local commerce and emerging regulated industries
Riegel’s business beat extends to everyday commerce and tightly regulated emerging sectors, where she again ties business decisions to lived experience. She has covered NOLA Cannabis Co.’s controversial dispensary on South Carrollton Avenue, taking readers inside the new store while outlining the neighborhood debate around its location and the regulatory framework that governs its operations.
In retail, her story on the closure of furniture store Hurwitz Mintz after 102 years framed the end of the business in terms of its place in local memory, noting that generations of residents furnished their homes there and now have to adjust to its disappearance.
Across these stories, Riegel’s reporting is distinguished less by a narrow sub-beat than by a consistent method: she follows the money, the assets and the regulatory structures, then connects them to the seniors staying in their apartments, the neighbors living beside a new cannabis dispensary, the workers tied to a tech tower or a rocket launch facility. That combination of transaction detail and everyday consequence defines her coverage of business for The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate.
4 more business journalists.
Aaron Karp
Aaron Karp is distinct for connecting airline networks, airport infrastructure, air cargo and policy. He is a senior editor at Air Transport World and has covered aviation since 1999. He has also worked as an editor for cargo-focused and daily aviation publications. His real beat is how airlines and airports respond to growth, regulation, trade conditions, sustainability pressures and technology changes. He covers route planning, network development, airport capacity, infrastructure, cargo flows, trade lanes, safety, air traffic control and future technology. He reports through news, features, opinion pieces, briefings and podcasts. He uses data, executive insight and industry conference reporting to explain market changes. His work links cargo metrics and trade policy to carrier strategy, and connects infrastructure and sustainability decisions to resilience, costs and long-term growth.
Adrienne Roberts
Adrienne Roberts is a business journalist at the Detroit Free Press who covers how policy, regulation and corporate decisions affect Michigan’s cannabis market, jobs, universities and health systems. She has a sustained focus on cannabis taxes, licensing, sales, product rules, consumer safety and local tax revenue. She also reports on unemployment, worker protections, corporate settlements, hiring, higher education, student safety, housing, data centers, health care access and economic forecasts. Roberts joined the Detroit Free Press in 2020 after covering automotive retail, dealers and labor issues for The Wall Street Journal. She explains complex business and regulatory changes with data, legal detail and on-the-ground voices. Her stories focus on practical effects for workers, students, consumers and communities, showing both the numbers and the people behind them.
Alex Bronzini-Vender
Alex Bronzini-Vender is a business reporter who focuses on how economic forces and corporate decisions shape specific communities and industries. He covers business for the Washington Monthly, writing reported pieces at the intersection of commerce and public life. His work reflects the magazine’s emphasis on linking markets and money to power, policy, and everyday experience. He treats business not as balance sheets and deals but as choices that affect local realities. In “Fear and Loathing in Palo Alto,” he uses a city tied to the tech sector to examine how a powerful industry influences a community. He grounds his business beat in on-the-ground consequences rather than treating corporate and financial developments in isolation.
Alex DeMarban
Alex DeMarban stands out for tracking major energy projects over time while showing how economic shifts affect local businesses. He reports for the Anchorage Daily News on business, oil and gas, and general assignments. His coverage focuses on Alaska LNG, long-haul energy projects, mining, ports, transportation infrastructure, and the everyday businesses that keep the state running. He examines financing, tax legislation, labor agreements, regulatory approvals, timelines and costs, and connects government and corporate decisions to workers, communities and consumers. He also reports on restaurant closures, grocery stores, breweries, meaderies, parking and trade disputes. His past coverage includes an open-pit mine near the proposed Ambler road, federal port grants and competitive elections. He reports through dollar figures, project details, public records, business owners and affected workers, showing how policy and resource development play out on the ground.