Last year, developers announced an ambitious plan to redevelop the old Trappey Cannery property near the Thurway in Lafayette.
Last month, a district court judge ordered the property seized and sold to pay off a promissory note, court records show.
The plan was to turn the 125-acre old cannery property - which is located on Guidry Street, off the Thurway between the airport and Pinhook Road - into a "walkable, connected riverfront." To see the plans as presented by developers, click here.
Major redevelopment planning was announced in 2021. You can read that story here.
But in 2025, court records show the Evangeline Bank and Trust Company filed suit against Trappey Riverfront Redevelopment LLC, New Orleans architect Marcel Wiszina and Lafayette architect Stephen Ortego, alleging that the bank had loaned them $970,000 on a promissory note, with the promise that it would be paid off in monthly installments.
The bank alleges that the parties didn't make those payments, and by March 2025 owed the bank $988,000 in unpaid principal, interest, late fees and costs. By October 2025, the court had granted motions by the bank to find the parties liable for the payments, and on April 13 the court signed an order directing the sheriff to seize the property and sell it to satisfy the judgment.
We've reached out to Ortego and to Wiszina's attorney of record for comment.
Wiszina's attorney, Morgan Gonzales of New Orleans, said his client has no comment.
