NEWS

As dust settles on latest near-Purdue land rush, West Lafayette asks: What’s next?

A proposed West Lafayette downtown plan – one that sees a new Levee area and possible roundabouts on Harrison Bridge – will get its first public airing Thursday

Dave Bangert
Journal & Courier
The State st. corridor as seen from Wabash Landing Apartments, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2019 in West Lafayette.

WEST LAFAYETTE – With dust still settling on the latest burst of development – construction of more than 2,500 beds in walking distance of Purdue is wrapping up this month, with retail components still being assembled – West Lafayette is already asking: What’s next?

Specifically, what’s next for the city’s vision of a new downtown, stretching from the Wabash River to Purdue’s campus along the recently finished, $120 million remaking of State Street?

This week, the wraps come off the latest version of what city leader and county planners call the West Lafayette Downtown Plan. In 105 pages, the draft plan sees a radically different Levee area, potentially a whole new concept for Harrison Bridge, pocket parks to offset the new vertical rise of student housing along State Street and more.

Just … not so fast.

“I think the whole purpose of the plan is to put out some parameters for what the city needs and what it doesn’t,” Mayor John Dennis said. “This will be methodical. This will be rolled out slowly. We’re talking decades. But this is where we start to say, ‘This is what our downtown could be.’”

On Thursday, the city and the Tippecanoe County Area Plan Commission will detail the plan, opening a month of public comment, before the document starts a slow vetting process that will take months before it winds up before the West Lafayette City Council, which asked for the plan in 2018.

READ THE FULL PLAN HERE: WEST LAFAYETTE DOWNTOWN PLAN

“This is a starting point,” said Ryan O’Gara, Area Plan Commission assistant director. “Everything in this plan, we have to be honest with ourselves, is looking out multiple generations. … But this is our chance to think big, to dream big. And its time for people in West Lafayette to do the same – and to tell us if this really is the right direction for West Lafayette’s downtown.”

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If the plan goes through, O’Gara said, it would provide guidelines that drove development decisions – often in a block-by-block manner for Chauncey Village, the Wabash Riverfront and the rest of the roughly 262 acres bound by the Wabash River and Grant Street, Tapawingo Drive to the southern edge of New Chauncey Neighborhood.

Ahead of Thursday’s introduction, here are some of the highlights.

RETHINKING THE LEVEE: O’Gara said the plan builds off the hilltop-to-hilltop philosophy touted for years in the community, linking Lafayette’s downtown with West Lafayette’s Village area. Between the two is the Levee area, which has developed, more or less, as a series of strip centers over the years.

Among the ideas in a proposed West Lafayette Downtown Plan is eventually platting a street grid where Levee Plaza and surrounding businesses are now.

The downtown plan proposes a series of streets, laid out in grid style, in the Levee area.

“Make it feel more like a downtown,” O’Gara said. “And really bring the two downtowns together in a way they’ve never been able to do.”

How would that happen? O’Gara said there are no suggestions that West Lafayette impose the idea by taking property via eminent domain. Instead, he said, as property owners looked to sell and developers came with new projects in the Levee, the new street grid could be incorporated into plans and slowly unfurled piece by piece.

“The thought here is, we’re trying to keep developers from seeing wide open spaces, the way things had been developed down there in the past,” O’Gara said. “Maybe we can get people thinking about a new look and feel for that area.”

The rough grid in the downtown plan shows streets going through existing businesses, including Levee Plaza, among the biggest developments in the Levee area. Patti Weida, an owner of Levee Plaza, said there are no short-term plans to redevelop Levee Plaza. But she said she was aware of the street grids being floated in the proposed downtown plan.

“There’s a lot of X’s and O’s until it affects us,” Weida said. “Right now, I think it’s just a long-term plan.”

NEW GREENSPACES: The downtown plan suggests carving out several patches of dedicated greenspaces, including an expansion of Tommy Johnston Park at Wood Street and Chauncey Avenue; at the corner of Northwestern Avenue and Wiggins Street, across from the new Hi-Vine development; near the corner of Brown Street and River Road; at the corner of State Street and Chauncey Avenue, where a Chipotle restaurant sits now.

O’Gara said the small park-like areas could help offset the higher density projects the city is looking to attract. But with businesses and housing already on those lots, O’Gara said it wasn’t clear how the city would convert those blocks to greenspace or how many years it would take.

NOD TO HISTORY: The downtown plan calls for a historic district in the Village area to help protect structures such as the Louis Sullivan-designed “Jewel Box” bank building at State Street and Northwestern Avenue and the Varsity Apartments at State Street and Andrew Place.

The plan also suggests what O’Gara calls “a policy of deference” to ensure that historic structures don’t get dwarfed by high-rises. The plan has a formula for building height that wouldn’t allow new developments to be twice as tall as neighboring historic buildings. Otherwise, according to the plan: “Over time, historic buildings in situations like these steadily appear more out of place in their own urban context until eventually calls arise to bring them down in favor or a development pattern more to scale with new development.”

The plan also suggesting an architectural review board for downtown redevelopments.

A NEW HARRISON BRIDGE CONCEPT: A roundabout once touted for the intersection of River Road and State Street never happened with the State Street project. But the downtown plan tries one roundabout better, this time in one of two places on Harrison Bridge to help get rid of the mess of on- and off-ramps there.

Among the ideas in a proposed West Lafayette Downtown Plan is building a roundabout in the middle of Harrison Bridge to eliminate the on-ramps and off-ramps at North River Road.

The first idea would put a roundabout just east of where Harrison Bridge crossing River Road. The interchange off River Road, just north of Harrison Bridge, would remain. Gone would be the on-ramp heading east toward Lafayette.

The second idea would put a roundabout where Harrison Bridge meets River Road – meaning the bridge would be lowered and River Road would be raised so they met. That would eliminate the on- and off-ramps on the bridge. It also would clear ground near Harrison Bridge for possible development.

AMONG THE REST OF THE IDEAS:

► Bury overhead utility lines in West Lafayette’s downtown.

► Changing zoning tools to support the development of housing that appeals to non-student groups.

► Include requirements for public art in negotiations for new downtown developments.

► Increase parking fines in the downtown so they keep up with fines on Purdue’s campus. Consider metered parking in some parts of downtown.

► Continue to work with the Wabash River Enhancement Corp. for its development plans in and near Tapawingo Park.

FOR MORE: To read a draft of the West Lafayette Downtown Plan, go to jconline.com and click on the link to this story.

IF YOU GO: The Area Plan Commission will hold a public presentation of the draft West Lafayette Downtown Plan at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 29, at the West Lafayette Public Library, 208 W. Columbia St.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.