This and that: Clearing the deck on a Tuesday night

Trinitas’ $350M development gets WL blessing. Metered parking pulled from Wabash Landing. Michelle Dennis steps down from WL City Council. And more.

• Thanks today for ongoing support from Based in Lafayette sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette. For tickets and details on all the shows and events, go to longpac.org.

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This week’s already piling up faster than I keep up with. Call this Tuesday night edition a chance to clear the deck of some of it …

UPDATE: $350M DISTRICT AT TAPAWINGO GETS WL CITY COUNCIL OK: Rezoning for the District at Tapawingo, Lafayette-based Trinitas Ventures’ $350 million development for 11 undeveloped acres between Tapawingo Drive and River Road, received unanimous approval Monday night from the West Lafayette City Council.

(Image: Trinitas Ventures)

The main question floated for a project designing to include 960 units with 1,800 beds and 16,000-square-feet of commercial space in a series of five- and six-story mixed-use buildings roughly behind River Market Apartments, a Speedway and the Hampton Inn, and north of the Tapawingo Drive/River Road/Williams Street roundabout?

Can Trinitas make a grocery store – and maybe two, council member Iris O’Donnell Bellisario said – part of the commercial offerings once the full project is done?

Mark Becher, vice president of mixed-used development for Trinitas, told council members that retailers hadn’t been signed on, yet, as the company aims for an April 2026 groundbreaking on the first phase. Becher said Trinitas would work to bring “a broad swath” of restaurants and retail, whether local, regional or national.

The first phase is expected to open in 2028. Becher has said that the first phase would include 500 of those 960 units, largely along the River Road side of the property, with the other 460 coming later. The project will include demolition of the Riverbend Apartments at 202 S. River Road, but not until current leases expire after the 2025-26 academic year at Purdue.

The city’s redevelopment commission already has been working with Trinitas on a plan to build streets through the development, envisioning them as part of a grid pattern laid out in the West Lafayette downtown traffic plan released in 2024. The idea is to have Trinitas build what will become extensions of Wood, Roebuck and other city streets and be reimbursed by the city, via tax revenues from the completed District at Tapawingo.

For more on the project, here’s a repeat of a BiL Q&A with Becher earlier this year: “A closer look at proposed $350M District at Tapawingo plans in West Lafayette.”

METERED PARKING REMOVED IN FRONT OF WABASH LANDING: Metered parking has been removed from West Lafayette’s Brees Way, replaced by the return of one-hour, timed parking on the drive in front to retail shops and eateries in Wabash Landing.

Gone. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

Signs for one-hour parking went up late last week, with formal approval of the change coming Tuesday from the city’s board of works.

“Along with any new parking things, there’s tweaks that need to be made,” Chad Spitznagle, the city’s housing director, said Tuesday morning.