Is the Village area, that collection of bars, restaurants and assorted businesses just east of the Purdue Memorial Union, going to be West Lafayette’s new downtown?
No one asked the question, exactly, Monday night in a debate over whether a five-story housing/retail project called 225 Northwestern should be allowed to replace a Bar Barry liquor store at Northwestern Avenue and North Street.
But as the usual suspects — population density, architecture, building height, parking shortages, student housing — piled up and congealed at one piece of high-profile property, Monday found city council members confronted and conflicted over what they want this downtown to look and feel like — if a new downtown is the right thing to be chasing.
“I think, if anything, we’ve set a precedent in that you’re seeing a city that isn’t going to take the first thing that comes its way,” Mayor John Dennis said Monday, after the city council voted 5-2 in favor of 225 Northwestern’s 44 upper-floor apartments and 5,200 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.
“And even then, you have council members thinking this through up until the end,” Dennis said. “They want to be sure. This area is just that important, I think.”
Monday night was a good refresher course on what’s facing a city that is pinning so many hopes on the edges of campus, in general, and on the Village area specifically.
City officials have been calling 225 Northwestern a “bookend project” — the final piece in a row of retail and apartment developments along two blocks of Northwestern Avenue.
It also is another example of squeezing bigger, denser projects into smaller spaces — a trend that continues to define the parts of the West Lafayette Village open for renovation.
To bump up the number of stories — five instead of the three allowed by original zoning — and to whittle down the number of parking spots per bedroom, Golden Paws Investments asked for planned development zoning. That gave city and county planners more control over what went into the development.
Attorney Dan Teder, in making a pitch to the city council, said developers were told: Get it right. He said Alan and Julie White, the developers behind Golden Paws, got that message and worked to make sure county planners and Chandler Poole, West Lafayette’s development director, were comfortable.
West Lafayette has been through this plenty of times in recent years, as zoning rules become negotiated settlements meant to help developers get more out of a property and give the city more of a say into the final design and use.
In 2012, for a nearby example, the council unanimously approved State Street Corner, a similar, five-story project at State Street and Northwestern Avenue. (State Street Corner has been stalled due to money issues and, according to city officials, likely won’t be completed before the 225 Northwestern project is open in fall 2015.)
That trend revived familiar questions on Monday:
• Is the city pushing its luck on parking in the Village, as bigger projects with fewer spaces come knocking? Council member Steve Dietrich hammered on that question, finally calling on Poole to be his barometer: Was he off base to worry about 34 spaces for 56 bedrooms, plus undetermined retail? Dietrich voted a halting yes, only after Poole assured him that the Village could handle whatever parking pressure came with 225 Northwestern.
• Is so much housing density a good thing for the Village? The number of mixed-use projects going up along the edges of Purdue University have been driven in part by a trend of students who are willing to pay premium rents to live walking distance from campus. Purdue and West Lafayette, for their part, have aimed for a pedestrian-friendly campus.
Still, several council members had their doubts. But developers found a defender in Mary Cook, owner of Harry’s Chocolate Shop, an iconic tavern in the Village. Her point: For every student who moves into the Village, that’s a little less pressure on near-campus neighborhoods desperate to preserve single-family housing. “They have to go somewhere,” Cook said.
• What will the impact be once Purdue decides on its expanded housing options? President Mitch Daniels has said he wants to get more students living on campus. What that means and when it will happen aren’t clear. But Purdue’s housing plan remains a wild card.
• How will a renovated State Street factor in? The city and Purdue are teaming up on a $197,900 study of the tired, 2½-mile stretch of State Street from the Wabash River to the new U.S. 231. The latest version of the State Street Master Plan includes better pedestrian and bike paths, various beautification efforts and reworked traffic patterns in the Village. The plan also raises the question: Where should West Lafayette’s downtown be?
The implication is the Village. And the city seems aimed that way, as Dennis mulls the possibility of moving city hall operations to Morton Community Center, a block away from 225 Northwestern.
But that leaves one other question that came from the audience Monday: Is every project West Lafayette considers from now on going to stretch zoning rules? Will there ever be standards beyond straight-up negotiations?
For now, West Lafayette seems content to deal with near-campus development on an as-needed basis.
Looks as if that might be how West Lafayette’s new downtown winds up looking and feeling, too.
Bangert is a columnist with the Journal & Courier. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
