Corporation to focus on
quality of life
By Heather Mangold
City
Editor
The city of Lafayette donated $100,000 this week
to a new organization that will focus its efforts on the quality of
life in the Greater Lafayette area.
The Greater Lafayette Community Development Corporation
was formed roughly six months ago by several community leaders to aid
Lafayette, West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Purdue and the Purdue
Research Foundation in property redevelopment through a mostly project-based
system.
A high-speed data transmission study for local
businesses, local government and Purdue is one of the first projects
for the new corporation.
"Businesses, Purdue and local government all have needs for high speed
data transmission," said Dennis Carson, interim coordinator for the
corporation.
The corporation plans to help implement a new system,
which could be used as a tool for local businesses to expand, said Carson.
The project would provide an underground fiber optics or copper-based
carriers of high-speed telecommunications and data transmitters.
The city of Lafayette plans to support the organization
for at least three years, or until it begins to see economic success,
said Sherry McLauchlan, director of Lafayette's Community Development
and Redevelopment Department. The success will be more possible if other
sources donate money, such as the city of West Lafayette, Purdue and
Purdue Research Foundation, she said.
The money donated by the city of Lafayette is just
a starting point for the organization.
"This is a kind of seed money to get this organization
going," said McLauchlan.
McLauchlan said the $100,000 was donated to the
corporation because it is an organization that would benefit the community
in general.
The corporation is very similar to Greater Lafayette
Progress, which focuses on industrial business and industrial recruitment
and retention. The two are different in that the Greater Lafayette Community
Development Corporation is more project-based and focuses on the quality
of life for those recruited and retained by Greater Lafayette Progress.
"People aren't going to move here if they think
it's (the organization) only going to last for one year," said McLauchlan.
The corporation is working on the Riverfront Master
Plan, a plan developed by the Lafayette Parks and Recreation Department
to utilize the benefits of the Wabash River. The plan's goal is to create
a corridor on the Wabash River for recreational and business use. The
proposed project would extend from Lafayette's Riehle Plaza north for
2.1 miles to just north of U.S. 52.
McLauchlan said the corporation recognized that
the plan was important and then decided to become involved.
"The idea is to study the needs of what we've got
and what we need," said McLauchlan.
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