This and that, a downtown edition
Lafayette looks for spots ripe for downtown development, with acres in play as streets and sanitation get ready to move. New layout for Lafayette Theater? Art coming to a traffic box near you
Thanks to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for support to help make this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project possible.
This and that to start the working week …
UP NEXT FOR DOWNTOWN LAFAYETTE: A consultant will spend the next four months looking at spots across downtown Lafayette that might prove ripe for development in the coming years. Last week, the Lafayette Redevelopment Commission agreed to a contract with MKSK Studios to build on the city’s 2016 Downtown Lafayette Vision & Redevelopment Plan to look at development opportunities and eventually pull together a cultural trail concept for the downtown, as well.
The study comes on the heels of a run of eight major construction projects in the works or recently wrapped up in the downtown. Aaron Kowalski, with MKSK, told the redevelopment commission that the new study would consider another 10 potential sites.
Dennis Carson, the city’s economic development director, said that could include surface parking lots and other underutilized spaces that the city could work with owners to help attract developers.
A big driver of that is what’s next for the city’s streets and sanitation garages on Second and Third streets, once Lafayette finishes a public works campus under construction on McCarty Lane, across form Cat Park. Mayor Tony Roswarski said the current site, once empty, will put about four acres into play. He called it a “massive opportunity.”
“Along with other parking lots and things that they'll be looking at, we have an opportunity we've never had before with that kind of ground becoming available,” Roswarski said.
In the past year, Roswarski has talked about the possibility of a dog park or other greenspace on part of that city-owned property, though specifics weren’t discussed last week.
LAFAYETTE THEATER AND ITS NEIGHBOR: An ongoing study into how to remodel Lafayette Theater at the corner of Sixth and Main streets expanded last week. The city, which bought and took over management of 1920s-era movie theater in 2020, hired architecture firm Cordogan Clark to design space in a neighboring building that most recently had been offices for Valley Oaks Health.
The firm already had been studying other options for a new layout inside Lafayette Theater, and the two buildings share a wall. Roswarski said the owner of the next-door building is open to the idea of selling ground floor space to the city, while hanging on to the rest of potential housing.
The city envisions the Lafayette Theater as the third piece of what Roswarski has called the Three L’s – along with Long Center a block away on North Sixth Street and the new Loeb Stadium in Columbian Park. A renovated Lafayette Theater would be part of a three-pronged approach to drawing arts and entertainment bookings to the city.
Carson said part of the problem with Lafayette Theater is that it was built to show movies and has no substantial backstage space for acts and crew and other amenities. The new study, expected by summer, will look at code compliance, structural needs and an overall floorplan that could expand the lobby and other amenities at the theater.
ART AND DOWNTOWN TRAFFIC LIGHT BOXES: The Arts Federation, with funding from the city, will call out for Greater Lafayette artists to design pieces to cover 14 traffic signal boxes in and around downtown Lafayette, based on action last week by the city’s redevelopment commission.
Tetia Lee, TAF’s executive director, said the project was a way to cut down on tagging and other vandalism the city was seeing on the boxes, while promoting art in downtown.
According to the contract, artists would get $900 for each design chosen. Designs would be produced as wraps that would cover the boxes. She said the goal was to solicit artwork that wouldn’t “look like something that you could buy from a Target or IKEA.”
A link with applications and parameters for the art is expected to go out this week, Lee said. She said the artwork-wrapped traffic control boxes could start popping up by May.
AND FINALLY … YOUR BIG TEN CHAMPIONS: Purdue saved a bunch on confetti after losing to IU Saturday night and clinching at least a share of the Big Ten men’s basketball title with a Northwestern loss to Maryland the following afternoon. With two regular season games left to win the thing outright, here’s some of the reaction Sunday afternoon …
Thanks, again, to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for helping make this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project happen.
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“... saved a bunch on confetti...”
I like that take. Silver lining.
I’m confused.I thought they had already announced that the space on south 3rd where sanitation and traffic is now will be a park. I’m very concerned about what will happen with the Charles Halleck building downtown. The last judge passed away last year so there’s really only a clerk left and the post office. I don’t know if GSA will have any more federal tenants for Lafayette.