LAFAYETTE, La. — Those who work or visit Downtown Lafayette may have noticed a few new residential buildings, but if Downtown can't handle more sewage future development would be impossible. "We've been meeting with a number of developers who are also interested in adding new mixed use developments into the downtown area and they've been held back by the lack of sewage capacity", explains Downtown Development Authority CEO Anita Begnaud.
Lafayette Utilities System has a long term plan to improve capacity by adding a sewage lift station downtown but it will take five to seven years to reach the levels needed for increased downtown residential units. To speed things up, the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority (LPTFA) agreed Wednesday night to fund the one million dollar lift station needed downtown, so pending developments could continue.
The proposed lift station would be built on a small lot on the corner of Grant and Second Streets currently owned py the LPTFA. "We acquired the property last year and it's just an excellent location for the sewer lift station", says LPTFA Project Coordinator Rebekke Miller.
It will provide sewage capacity for up to eighteen hundred new Downtown Lafayette residents.
The improvements will accommodate more than two hundred residential units that are set to be built in the next two to five years. "When people live downtown you attract business downtown, and people living downtown, and new businesses downtown generate property and sales tax, which helps to improve the bottom line of our city and parish", adds Begnaud.
Work on the station should start in the next few weeks and take just over a year to complete.
