A major step towards future development for Downtown Lafayette.
Elected officials, business leaders, and downtown stakeholders took part in a groundbreaking ceremony for the Downtown Sewer Lift Station Project.
The lift station will increase the capacity of Downtown Lafayette and the LaPlace neighborhood to be able to support large-scale residential development.
Once complete, the new lift station will make it possible to add hundreds of new residential units downtown.
Construction is expected to take several months and cost about $850,000.
The project is made possible by a partnership between the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority (LPTFA) and Lafayette Utilities System (LUS).
The LPTFA is funding and managing the project on behalf of the City of Lafayette. Once complete, LUS will reimburse a large portion of the cost.
"A lot of our older sections of town like downtown we've gotten behind over the years," said Kevin Blanchard, executive director of Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority. "This is a project that's going to get us caught up in the short-time period, but there's a lot of excitement about it. I think they understand that this is just another building block that needs to be in place to make the city the future city we want it to be."
