This and that: Expanded ‘DORA’ arrives Friday in time for Gallery Walk
Plus, Braun brings U.S. Education Secretary McMahon to Purdue. Lawsuits targeting SK hynix rezoning merged into one as site work continues. $350M District at Tapawingo advances. And more.
Programming note: Based in Lafayette will be on some scheduled downtime for the next week. If you don’t see the usual volume of BiL in your inbox in that time, that’s the reason. (We’ll have a few standing features ready for you.) Thanks for reading. And thanks for the chance to step away for a bit.
For now, some of this, some of that …
DOWNTOWN LAFAYETTE’S EXPANDED DRINKS-TO-GO DISTRICT OPENS FRIDAY: Downtown Lafayette bars and restaurants will be able to start selling drinks to go at 5 p.m. Friday, with recent state approval and fresh signage installed near Main Street and several other streets, city officials said this week.
The timing works out, too: The first drinks going out for the expanded “Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area” will be in time for Friday’s Gallery Walk in various spots in downtown Lafayette and Saturday’s Downtown Blues and Jazz Festival on North Fifth Street.
“We’re excited about it,” Jeff Hamann, an owner of the Knickerbocker Saloon on Fifth Street and Digby’s Pub and Patio on Fourth Street, said. Both spots are among the 15 bars and restaurants that have applied to participate in the expanded DORA approved this spring by the Lafayette City Council.
“I've owned the Knickerbocker 18 years, and the changes I've seen downtown over the last 18 years have been outstanding,” Hamann said. “The streetscapes, the investment of small business owners, the art studios, there’s just all kinds of different businesses downtown. What the DORA district means for us is that people can come in, get a cocktail to go and go wander Main Street and side streets with these small businesses. It’s a win-win for all of downtown. … I think it’s just going to be cool to be able to have a cocktail and walk around and explore.”
Myles Holtsclaw, senior community development manager for the city, said the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission approved the DORA July 7.
According to the state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, a designated outdoor refreshment area allows someone 21 or older to buy alcoholic beverages from approved vendors and retail establishments and carry them outside to be consumed within approved boundaries. Lafayette agreed to carryout drinks in the city’s first DORA in spring 2024, keeping it to three restaurants in the 1000 block of Main Street. The city council gave final approval in April to a measure looking to expand the DORA zone along Main Street, along with sections of Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth streets, spreading the number of designated restaurants and bars in the DORA from three to 15 that have applied so far.
The city also has a website with maps, features and rules about the DORA expansion. Boiled down: the city ordinance allows someone to buy up to two servings of beer, wine, cider, hard seltzer or mixed drinks from a permitted restaurant or bar and carry it outside to the DORA boundaries.
The hours allowed are 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 5-11 p.m. Friday; noon-11 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 10 p.m. Sunday.
Related: For more about Gallery Walk and the Downtown Blues and Jazz Festival, check out this week’s edition of Tim’s Picks.
U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY STOPS AT PURDUE: Gov. Mike Braun brought U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Purdue Wednesday for a series of meetings and tours on the West Lafayette campus.
The public portion of the visit centered quite a bit on touting Purdue’s decade-plus run on tuition freezes and how other universities in Indiana followed suit – or, were forced to by the governor’s pressure – for the next two years.
McMahon, assigned by President Donald Trump to wind down the U.S. Department of Education, apparently didn’t take questions from a small contingent of invited media – no in-town outlets, including Based in Lafayette, were offered invitations by the governor’s office – about federal cuts and other mandates aimed at universities and K-12 public schools. She and Braun also were part of a closed door roundtable discussion with over a dozen other state leaders, including bankers, philanthropists, school corporation superintendents and Republican legislative leaders, according to media accounts.
Whitney Downard, reporting for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, had this account: “US education secretary stops at Purdue University with governor.”
McMahon posted this after the show:
They also stopped at Triple XXX for root beer and coffee.
While in West Lafayette, McMahon also toured Purdue’s nuclear reactor on campus on a day when the university announced a research partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, signed July 14 in New Mexico. The agreement would have the Los Alamos National Laboratory setting up a station near Purdue and sets up ways for joint research on advance materials for hypersonics, cybersecurity, energetics and more, according to the university.
The visit, even with limited public exposure, came as Purdue officials have done all they can to reserve their thoughts and limit their comments about state and federal decisions that have affected everything from research funding to student visas, diversity initiatives to academic freedom, and then some.
Purdue President Mung Chiang offered this prepared statement Wednesday afternoon: “During Secretary McMahon’s visit and roundtable discussion hosted by Gov. Braun at Purdue’s nuclear reactor research lab, leaders from federal government, state government, K-12 and industry discussed the development of the skilled workforce needed to power critical fields across our state and nation. With excellence at scale and with a focus on student success and affordability, Purdue is excited to continue the national leadership in advancing nuclear power, AI computing capabilities, work-study programs, and through public private partnerships create jobs, workforce and innovation together.”
UPDATE: LAWSUITS CHALLENGING SK HYNIX REZOING MERGED INTO ONE: A pair of Tippecanoe County judges signed off this week on combining a pair of lawsuits aiming to overturn a decision to rezone 121 acres in West Lafayette to clear the way for SK hynix’s $3.87 billion facility to assemble high-bandwidth memory chips. The May 6 rezoning decision by the West Lafayette City Council is being challenged by West Lafayette resident Lora Marie Williams in one case and West Lafayette residents Karl Janich and Sean Sasser in the other. Williams’ case was filed June 4 in Tippecanoe Circuit County. Janich and Sasser’s complaint was filed June 4, too, a few hours after in Tippecanoe Superior Court 1. Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 Judge Randy Williams agreed to consolidate Janich and Sasser’s complaint in with the one filed by Williams. Tippecanoe Circuit Judge Sean Persin accepted the cases as one on Thursday, according to court records.
Both complaints – naming the city, Purdue Research Foundation, Area Plan Commission and SK hynix – contend that the city council overstepped its authority, ignoring warnings from local experts about health, environmental and other concerns in its vote. They argue that deadlines were missed in the approval process dealing with where SK hynix will put its planned 340,000-square-foot R&D and manufacturing facility, expected to open in 2028 and eventually employ 800 to 1,000 people.
No hearings had been set, as of Thursday, as the city, Purdue Research Foundation, SK hynix and the APC prepare responses to the initial complaints.
In related news: SK hynix continues to do prep work on the land rezoned in May, as the lawsuits advance.
“What is currently underway at the site is a ‘Historical and Archaeological Survey,’” Yixi Lee, head of global PR for SK hynix, told Based in Lafayette. “This is being conducted to check for any historical artifacts or archaeological sites prior to construction, in accordance with Indiana state guidelines for historic preservation.”
Lee said site work would be commissioned once all necessary procedural reviews had been completed.
Here’s more on the lawsuits and what they’re aiming to get done:
$350M DEVELOPMENT IN WEST LAFAYETTE ADVANCES: The District at Tapawingo, a $350 million mixed-used project on 11 undeveloped acres between Tapawingo Drive and River Road proposed by Trinitas Ventures, received a positive, unanimous recommendation for its rezoning request by the Area Plan Commission Wednesday. The designs filed with the Area Plan Commission include 960 units with 1,800 beds and 18,700-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. Developer Marc Becher in June told the West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission that the first phase would include 500 of those 960 units, with the other 460 coming later. The project is designed around what will be an extension of Wood Street, Roebuck Drive and two other, yet-unnamed city streets that line up with West Lafayette’s downtown traffic plan released in 2024. For more, here’s a closer look at the project as it was introduced in spring 2025:
AND, FINALLY …: EXTEND YOUR BASED IN LAFAYETTE SUBSCRIPTION BY CHIPPING IN FOR THE CASAs FOR KIDS FUND
We’re two weeks out from the 2025 edition of the Subaru CASA Cycling Challenge, a 24-hour event held Aug. 2-3 at the two-mile Subaru of Indiana Automotive test track in Lafayette, will again have a version of Bangert Brothers team there to put in some laps in support to the CASAs for Kids Fund here in Tippecanoe County.
The CASAs for Kids Fund is set up for abused or neglected kids who wind up in the court system and in foster care, offering funding for clothing, bedding, school band instruments, field trip or summer camp fees, dance class, equipment to join sports teams and other things the system can’t provide. The CASAs for Kids Fund gets them that stuff and gets them that much closer to a normal life as a kid. And fundraising tied to the 24-hour ride gets the CASAs for Kids Fund geared up for the next year.
Just like last year, I’ll add a free month to your full-access Based in Lafayette subscription for a donation of any amount to the Bangert Brothers team or team members.
Thanks for generosity of those of you who have already stepped up. Your free month of Based in Lafayette should be in hand.
If you’re game, here’s the link.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Enjoy your well-earned time off, Dave!
By the time Pete Hogsbreath becomes a trustee, it will be too late to keep Purdue out of the military industrial complex.