LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The City of Lafayette has learned that its request for $7,774,200 in neighborhood stabilization funding has been granted, Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said. The money is targeted for the Glen Acres neighborhood. It will help create 15 new single-family homes, rehabilitate another eight homes and provide 89 rental units.
“This is huge. Huge news and huge funding,” Roswarski said. “We will receive the full amount we requested, and it’s going to save and revitalize an entire Lafayette neighborhood. We’re going to stretch every dollar and make an immeasurable impact on Lafayette through a unique public/private partnership.”
Funding was awarded by the Indiana Housing & Community Redevelopment Authority in response to a grant request submitted in March.
Of the $7.7 million, $5.5 million will be used to help transform the blighted property that once was the Bridgeway apartment complex into a new housing development. The city had earlier acquired the Bridgeway site and now is working with Brinshore Development LLC of Northbrook, Ill., to create the planned $15 million Chatham Square. It will be a 98-unit housing development, with 89 rental properties and nine single-family homes. Work on that project is slated to begin next summer and be completed by yearend 2011.
With the funding, the City of Lafayette also will purchase, renovate and resell eight single-family homes, and purchase and demolish another six. Habitat for Humanity will then build six new homes on those sites.
“Our vision is that homeownership in the Glen Acres neighborhood will rise, more families with children will move into the neighborhood and school enrolment will stabilize,” said Dennis Carson, director of redevelopment for the City of Lafayette.
“A city-wide team has been working on this project for months to identify innovative ways to save and enhance this neighborhood,” said Aimee Jacobsen, director of Community Development for the City of Lafayette. “We’ve reached out to many groups who have come to the table with ideas, assistance and enthusiasm.”
Those groups include Area IV Agency on Aging, Glen Acres School, Lafayette School Corp., Habitat for Humanity, Lafayette Neighborhood Housing Services, Purdue University Landscape Architecture, Tecumseh Area Partnership, Tippecanoe County Council on Aging, United Way of Greater Lafayette and Wabash Center.
The name for Chatham Square comes from an earlier owner of the property, the Chatham family, who farmed the property until the mid-1950s.
