Joseph C. Canizaro, a past chair and trustee of ULI, passed away at age 88 on June 20, 2025. A member of ULI for more than 50 years, Canizaro built one of New Orleans’ most influential real estate development companies, Columbus Properties, which helped shape the city’s skyline.
“I will always remember Joe’s love for ULI and his belief that, together, we can make communities better,” said ULI Americas CEO Mary Beth Corrigan. “He trusted ULI and our members to do the right thing.”
Born on March 1, 1937, in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi, Canizaro began his real estate career by selling subdivision lots in Biloxi and initiated several small development projects before he recognized that greater opportunities lay elsewhere. On a visit to New Orleans in the early 1960s, he climbed to the top of the World Trade Center, looked down at the place where Canal Street and Poydras Street meet the Mississippi River—an area then dotted with industrial warehouses and low-rise buildings—and saw great potential for development. In 1965, Canizaro and his wife, Sue Ellen, moved to New Orleans. He worked as an appraiser for Standard Mortgage Company, then left to form Joseph C. Canizaro Interests in 1966, which would later become Columbus Properties.
He joined ULI in 1969. Three years later, he completed the 200,000-square-foot (18,580 sq m) Lykes Center, the first privately owned office building on Poydras Street. He followed it with Canal Place, a mixed-use development on 23 acres (9.3 ha) at the foot of Canal Street. As part of an extensive community engagement process for the project, Canizaro worked closely with preservationists, business leaders, and neighborhood groups and presented the project to ULI. The resulting master plan respected the French Quarter’s historical context while securing federal funding through a $6 million urban development action grant.
Other significant New Orleans developments by Canizaro include First Bank and Trust Tower (formerly LL&E Tower); 400 Poydras Tower (formerly Texaco Center); First Bank Center (formerly the Galleria in Metairie); Le Méridien New Orleans (formerly Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza); and the Information Technology Center Office Complex at the Beach at UNO (formerly the University of New Orleans Research and Technology Park).
The founder and former co-chair of the Committee for a Better New Orleans, a nonprofit organization aiming to support the city’s community leaders, Canizaro also participated in civic organizations such as the Archbishop’s Community Appeal Campaign and the New Orleans Museum of Art advisory council, and he served on the President’s Council for Tulane University.
“Joe Canizaro was a great friend and wonderful person,” said Smedes York, director and board chair of York Properties and a past chair of ULI. “I worked closely with Joe in many ULI initiatives, including the post-Katrina panel in 2005. He was a positive, caring, and dynamic leader for ULI and the city of New Orleans. He was very accommodating and would do anything to help—a true team player. He was never too busy to stop and help a fellow ULI member. He represented the essence of ULI.”
Throughout his career, Canizaro remained deeply involved with ULI and took on a variety of leadership roles. He was chair of ULI from 1995 to 1997. A member of the ULI Board of Trustees since 1983, he also belonged to the ULI Executive Committee, the ULI U.S. Council, the ULI Foundation Board of Directors, the ULI Foundation Board of Overseers, the ULI Foundation Governors, and the ULI Officers over the years. In addition, he was a founding member of his local District Council, ULI Louisiana.
The October 1995 issue of Urban Land published a profile, “Introducing Joe Canizaro” as he became ULI’s new president. He is quoted in the piece saying, “Real estate people are confident in their skills as developers, owners, and investors, but they recognize that to really enhance the value of their holdings, they must be part of a viable city and a community that works. At ULI, we learn how important it is to have a strong neighborhood and a strong community.”
(ULI Library)
A longtime philanthropist, he was a member of ULI’s Marcus Vitruvius Society, which honors individual donors who have contributed more than $5 million to the ULI Foundation, and of the ULI Foundation’s James J. Curtis Society for Planned Giving. He served on multiple product councils, including the Blue Flights of the Urban Development and Mixed-Use Council and the Community Development Council, as well as the Inner-City Council and the Placemaking Council.
Canizaro served as chair of a bank holding company he founded in 1991, First Trust Corporation, as well as chair of First Bank and Trust of New Orleans, a community bank serving Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He created a venture capital company, Corporate Capital LLC, in 1998.
He established the Joseph C. Canizaro Chair for Public Policy as part of the ULI Senior Resident Fellows program in 1996, a position held by former Indianapolis mayor William H. Hudnut III until 2009. In 2011, Canizaro teamed with Jim Klingbeil to establish the ULI Canizaro/Klingbeil Fellowship for Urban Development, a position currently held by former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett.
In this Urban Land column dated January 1997, Joe Canizaro writes, “I’m really excited about the progress we’ve made toward our goal of significantly increasing ULIs’ influence on public policy.” To that end, the Institute gathered then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development with seven mayors and 25 “distinguished” ULI members, who “put together a list of action-oriented priorities for the public and private sectors to promote revitalization.” This was the beginning of President Bill Clinton’s second term in office, and the interest rates were some what higher at 5.25 percent.
ULI
“I had the honor to be the Canizaro/Klingbeil Senior Fellow at ULI for 15 years,” said Tom Murphy, former Pittsburgh mayor and former ULI Senior Resident Fellow, Canizaro/Klingbeil Chair for Urban Development. “During that time, I had the opportunity to work with two giants of the real estate industry who cared deeply about ULI and the public good. Particularly, immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Joe Canizaro demonstrated selfless concern for the plight of New Orleans. In his development Tradition, in Mississippi, by his force of will and vision, he was building a model community as a place to work and live. He was a visionary and a doer.”
Among Canizaro’s most recent developments, Tradition is a 4,900-acre (1,980 ha) town on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Billed as the largest master-planned community under development in the state, Tradition is anticipated to have 15,000 residential units, 2,000,000 square feet (185,800 sq m) of commercial development, and 35,000 residents upon completion. Anchored by William Carey University, Tradition Medical City also includes Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Bryant Center Healthcare Simulation Center and the Vito J. Canizaro Mississippi Veterans Administration Home—the latter named after Canizaro’s late father.
