Special Bd. of Aldermen — 03/6/2018 Page 4
Everyone was afraid. We didn’t go out at night. You didn’t send your children to play to the school because
they sat on the playground and sold drugs. | could watch them from my home and they were not shy about it.
There were thugs and thieves roaming the streets. You didn’t leave anything in your yard because it wouldn’t
be there the next day and you didn’t leave your cars unlocked.
A team from agencies across the community leveraged TIF funds to obtain additional millions in federal grants
to transform the rundown area. Today Chatham Square named after the Chatham family who farmed the
property until the 1950s uplifts the spirit of the long, established Glenn Acres neighborhood.
Well there’s no doubt that getting rid of the old Bridgeway Apartments and the new Chatham Square
development really was one of the transformative things we’ve been able to do when it really comes to
neighborhood stabilization. It got rid of quite frankly one of the areas in town that was our highest crime rate.
That crime spilled into other neighborhoods surrounding the Bridgeway Apartments and Chatham Square
really took all of that and turned that back into a community. Really the surrounding neighborhoods saying we
want to be a part of that also. We want this to really feel like a neighborhood like a community.
It’s turned out to be wonderful. It looks like it’s a safe environment. It’s a clean environment. There are
waiting lists to get in here and they’ve done exactly what they said they were going to do. They have held
them to standards that no other complex does. They are drug tested. They’re required to have employment
and there are occupancy limits that are adhered to. That never happened before.
A city’s downtown could center and heart hums with an energy that must be valued and cultivated. When a
downtown thrives, all of a community thrives.
Well the downtown is important to the tax base because on a square foot basis, the downtown property owners
pay more than any other area of the county so those taxes that are generated in the very densely populated
and very densely developed area actually support the entire community.
There’s TIF dollars in the renaissance place which is a really neat redevelopment of downtown and that’s close
to Reilly Plaza, the Meyer’s Bridge which is really a focal piece of our community and so that to me is an
important piece because it also helped bring about that thought of we can do retail. We can do banking. We
can do upscaling living a little bit higher end of places for people to live downtown. So that’s a project that
stands out for me that’s helped been a catalyst for some other things that could take place downtown that said
this can work.
Also in downtown Lafayette, an innovative co-working studio has brought a fresh and dynamic feel to the city.
We are in matchbox co-working facility which is a relatively new facility and idea for Lafayette and really the
nation as a whole. It’s basically shared office space. What we’re targeting here is these folks that you might
see at the coffee house on their laptop or something, or they’re working from their home. These are people
that don’t have an office that are again working from their home or some other spot. They can come here and
have an office environment to work in but more importantly they can come to a place where they can
collaborate with others so that other like-minded entrepreneurs here.
| think there’s a lot of talent in this community. There’s a lot of people with great ideas that really are looking
for ways to help bring those out and develop them. We really didn’t have a facility like Matchbox that was
possible here in Lafayette and working with a lot of different groups and some really smart people, we’ve been
able to put together not just a facility because it’s not just about the bricks and the mortar, it’s also about the
environment, about the though process and the creativity and the willingness to say it’s okay to fail. We want
people to try new things because we know eventually products will be developed, companies will be
developed, and Matchbox encompasses all those. A really good design with the right environment. Ve want
creative people. We want people to try new things. So Matchbox kind of brings all that together and on top of
that, it’s in a nice historic building that was reused too.
