WEST LAFAYETTE – The longer Jim Pasdach sat listening to city planners talk Monday night about a proposed West Lafayette Downtown Plan – one meant to shape the look and feel of the city’s Village and Levee areas over the next half-century – the madder he got.
Halfway through what turned out to be an hourlong discussion in front of the West Lafayette City Council, Pasdach, owner of JL Records at 380 Brown St., said he’d had enough.
“See that blue line?” Pasdach asked, on this way out of the makeshift city council chambers at the former Happy Hollow Elementary.
The blue line was part of a grid of imaginary blocks superimposed over existing businesses and parking lots in the Levee Plaza meant in the proposed plan to give the area between River Road and the Wabash River more of a traditional downtown feel, on par with the layout of streets in downtown Lafayette.
The blue line – meant to signify an alley – also bisected a record store he’d owned and operated in that spot for decades. Pasdach had heard repeated Monday night what West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis had been saying since the downtown plan started in 2018 – that it was meant to roll out over decades, nothing was set in stone and that the city didn’t have interest in forcing anything by taking property via eminent domain.
Pasdach left the meeting Monday night seeing that blue line as a threat, just the same.
“I don’t care,” Pasdach said. “They need to get rid of that blue line. Because it ain’t going to happen.”
The West Lafayette City Council, which has been waiting on a downtown development plan for two years, set it aside until at least March 2, when the 100-plus-page document could be up for a vote.
On Monday, the first time the city council reviewed it publicly, the plan received a chilly reception – and outright protest, in some cases – from a half-dozen property owners who took issue with a plan they said, in one way or another, devalued their land or hamstrung what they could do with it in the future.
The plan covers 262 acres bound by the Wabash River and Grant Street, Tapawingo Drive to the southern edge of New Chauncey Neighborhood. That takes in the Chauncey Village area near Purdue and an area the plan calls the Wabash Riverfront, which includes Levee Plaza, Wabash Landing and River Market.
READ THE PROPOSED WEST LAFAYETTE DOWNTOWN PLAN
The objective, as laid out by Ryan O’Gara, assistant director of the Tippecanoe County Area Plan Commission, was create a seamless transition between Lafayette’s downtown on through to the edge of Purdue’s campus. The plan includes block-by-block narratives for the type of development the city would encourage when property owners are ready.
“One thing we get an earful from the development community is … ‘Well, what can I do with my property? What will the city accept?’” O’Gara said. “This plan is a way to try to answer that question – to provide some clarity for a property owner in this area. To say, ‘Hey, this is the direction the city wants to grow.’”
Peter Bunder, city council president, said it was “rare” that the city was “actually is out ahead of development.” He complimentary of the plan, which comes after the city and Purdue spent $120 million to remake State Street and after the first push of construction of high-rises and other projects that followed that investment.
Mostly, city council members listened Monday.
And mostly those who commented were property owners saying they were skeptical.
Cristie Weida Dombkowski, who is listed as part of the steering committee for the downtown plan, said her mother, Patti Weida, an owner of Levee Plaza, was blindsided by a call from the media asking for her take about the grid street notion that covered maps of the shopping center and its parking lot.
“We do not agree to city streets being laid out throughout our property, as this compromises the value and future development and potential of the property,” Dombkowski said of the 11-plus acres of Levee Plaza.
Dombkowski also questioned the downtown plan’s suggestion of reserving other land she and family members own north of Harrison Bridge for park space. That area includes part of the Launch apartment complex and other multi-family buildings.
“There are consequences to this vote that have a monetary impact to property owners,” she said. “I have to disclose this information if and when I go to sell my property. I’d like the council to take this into consideration.”
Similar concerns were raised for blocks next to Tommy Johnston Park, the corner of State Street and Chauncey Avenue where a Chipotle restaurant sits and a triangle of land at Northwestern Avenue, Wiggins Street and Vine Street. All were suggested as future parks in the proposed downtown plan.
Kendall Smith, an owner of 200 W. State St., where the Chipotle restaurant is, said he considered the restaurant “is an important part of the downtown formula.” The land, surrounded by others either being developed or being readied for development, continues to go up in value, he said. The plan suggests “repurposing” the neighboring Louis Sullivan-designed “Jewel Box” bank building at State Street and Northwestern “as a civic-use building with the rest of the block serving as the second of three public park spaces in Chauncey Village.” Smith said he’d seen similar suggestions during public meetings leading up to a draft of the downtown plan.
“However, I didn’t realize the city was planning to make a resolution to permanently label it as a park,” Smith said. “This action will virtually condemn our site for future private development. That will reduce the property value immediately, as there will be no future buyers except the city. Of course, devaluation would benefit the purchase by the city down the road.”
Bob Hockema told council members he bought a building at 400 Brown St. figuring he might one day develop the land as a riverfront restaurant.
“My concern is, the current administration says there’s no chance of eminent domain,” Hockema said. “But this is a 20- or 30-year plan. Future administrations could change their stance on that.”
By the time that came up – and by the time city council members tabled the issue to let it stew another month – Pasdach was long gone, too mad to hang around.
Erik Carlson, West Lafayette development director, said the idea behind the plan was to let things develop as property owners were ready.
“That’s the key to the way this future is laid out, it will not force anyone to go away,” Carlson said. “The aim of this is to make our area the cool place to be. You don’t do that by tearing down a record store.”
Pasdach still saw that blue line, roughly cutting the bins of vinyl and CDs in half. He said it reminded him of the late-‘90s and early-2000s, when the city bought a former Sears store and brought in a private developer to help build Wabash Landing. He’s convinced the city wanted to get his property, just across Brown Street, then, too.
“They thought they were going to roll me last time, too,” Pasdach said. “They can try. But not me. They’re not going to roll me.”
FOR MORE FROM THE PLAN: To read the full plan, go to jconline.com and click on the link to this story.
Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
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