While the rest of the nation may be headed into a recession, the New Orleans economy is being driven by more than $1 billion in federal money on bricks-and-mortar hurricane recovery projects, among them a new golf course for Pontchartrain Park, city officials said Tuesday.

Flanked by members of his administration, Mayor Ray Nagin sketched progress on the more than 600 Katrina-related construction projects for which Uncle Sam is footing the bill.

So far, he said, 60 projects costing $67 million are finished, while 122 are in construction and 439 are being designed.

William Chrisman, who took over three months ago as the city's capital projects administrator, said planned projects include six new facilities for police and five for firefighters.

Chrisman also ticked off a slew of projects to bring hurricane-battered parks back to life.

In the next three weeks, he said, 15 tennis courts in four parks will be resurfaced, while 11 courts in two other parks will get similar treatment within six weeks.

At the Stern Tennis Center Uptown, repair of damage done by the 2005 storm will begin within two months, Chrisman said.

"We hope to have people playing tennis at Stern by late February," he said.

Chrisman had a similarly upbeat forecast about Pontchartrain Park's ten tennis courts where resurfacing work is scheduled to start this month and be completed in November.

The tennis court resurfacing is just one aspect of $10 million worth of planned Pontchartrain Park improvements. Chrisman said a new Joe M. Bartholomew Golf Course will be put out for bids in late December, and bids for a new clubhouse will be taken in March.

"We hope to have people playing on that golf course by midsummer," Chrisman said.

Nagin chief administrative officer Brenda Hatfield said the federal recovery money is also making it possible for the city to make repairs to more than 17,000 roads and streets.

Of that total, 929 projects are finished, 4,470 are under way and plans for the rest are being drawn up, she said. Ed Blakely, the city's recovery czar, said the federally financed construction program, together with revival of retailing in 17 areas targeted for redevelopment after Katrina, is evidence of "the ball rolling downhill now."

And Blakely said there is more fueling the city's economy than just federal money: "We have $3 billion worth of private-sector projects going on in this city," he said.

One of them, he said, is the new Borders bookstore being readied at the former Bultman funeral home at Louisiana and St. Charles avenues.

Susan Finch can be reached at sfinch@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3340.

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