The best way to revamp the square is to follow a master plan from start to finish, agreed 10 committee members last week at a Macon County Revitalization, Inc., meeting at Lafayette City Hall.

“We all believe there is a need for a master plan,” said Pete Williston, vice president of Macon County Revitalization, Inc., and CEO of Citizen’s Bank.

“We looked at other cities that are going through what we are trying to do. They didn’t have a master plan. This group, I think, feels strongly that we need a master plan to guide us along the way.”

Producing the master plan comes with a price. It’s going to cost between $3,000 and $5,000.

“We’ll take any donations from anyone that wants to help,” Williston said. “Certainly, we are going to move forward with development of the master plan to guide us along the way.”

Williston chaired the meeting in the absence of president Miles Gibson, who was out of town.

“I thought it was a good meeting tonight,” Williston said. “We had a lot of input. We had several folks here who came to the workshop last month and provided additional input tonight.

“It was a very engaging meeting. A lot of new ideas came up. There’s a lot of excitement in this group about what we’re trying to do.”

A variety of topics were covered throughout the two-hour meeting. Many ideas were generated and discussed among the members in attendance. Among them were:

Utilities

Electric utilities are one of the first aspects of revitalization the master plan would need to address.

Electric utilities are “the biggest hurdle in my mind because of the cost,” Williston said during the meeting.

Construction, Williston said, is a sequential process and, therefore, must come first.

“That may be one of the things that we want to push to have happen pretty soon,” Williston said.

Motion passed

A motion passed to establish a committee to start the fundraising effort. Given the overall economic situation, Williston said it could be a tough sell at the moment, especially with the holiday season approaching and other local fundraisers going on.

“It’s going to be a difficult time,” Williston said. “There are going to be several angles for generating funds. I think grants will be one way.”

Brick-by-brick?

One idea to raise money for the revitalization effort involves having people buy a brick at a set price. The brick would then be engraved with the person’s name and become part of a new sidewalk around the square.

“This is a very visual thing for a community to see,” committee member Kathryn Raum said.

Several members expressed reservations about starting the brick project now, because sidewalks would have to be torn up to complete utility work.

Williston was one of those members. He told the committee his concerns go back to electric utilities.

“This probably doesn’t need to go first,” Williston said. “This needs to come in behind the utility work. If we start digging up sidewalks and concrete, we can’t put the bricks down first.”

There was some discussion of moving forward with the project by taking pledges for the bricks now and setting them with cement upon completion of the utility work.

“But if you do that,” Williston responded, “you’ve got to give people something for their money. If it’s two or three years down the road before the bricks are installed then I think we’re going to have some customer issues.”

Next, members discussed the possibility that there might be some places in the square not affected by the utility work. If that were the case, then the brick project could begin sooner. Before any of that can happen, though, a master plan must be in hand.

Another issue is that the sidewalks in front of the businesses are the property of the individual business owners, not the city of Lafayette.

Committee member Jim Hodges, president of the Hodges Group in Portland and owner of the White Hotel, suggested encouraging business owners to transfer ownership of the sidewalks to the city for inclusion in the master plan.

“You really don’t want everybody having their own idea about what they want to do with their sidewalk,” Hodges said.

Said committee member Richard Eadler: “Why not approach the business owners that own these pieces of property with a little tax-relief incentive. If they sell that off, that’s going to reduce the taxes on their property. That may be a way of enticing people to relinquish them.”

Williston told the committee he thinks the bricks are a good idea.

“My sense, and I think a little bit of what I’m hearing here, is that it’s too early to do it because there are so many other pieces to the master plan that have to happen,” he said.

The brick project hasn’t been put on back burner, though.

“Right now the idea is here, and we don’t really want to put it to bed,” Eadler said. “We need to keep it in front of the public and say, ‘this is what we’re looking at. This is what we want to do. Yes, we’re a year and a half or two years down the road. If you wish to get on board and you want to do it now, that’s fine. If you want to wait, that’s fine, too.’”

Said Williston after the meeting: “There’s strong interest in it. I think it’s a matter of timing as to when the best time to do the brick project is.”

Tax status

The committee agreed it should seek 501c3 tax status. Getting that status is time intensive and will require much work. A book keeper would be needed. Somebody would have to formally manage the money, and a couple reports a year would have to be filed.

“We need to do that,” Williston said afterwards. “We’ve got to find somebody to help us with that.

No more big rigs?

It hasn’t been decided yet whether or not trucks and through traffic will be discouraged from traveling around the square.

“A lot of folks think we need to get all the trucks and through traffic off the square,” Williston told committee members. “A lot of people think we need to keep it on the square.”

If the square were to become more pedestrian-friendly, one committee member said, then big commercial vehicles would start looking for another route.

Parking or no-parking?

Some spots at the back of buildings will need to be looked at, either by the city or by private developers, to provide additional parking.

There was some discussion about the possibility of having county employees park somewhere else besides in front of the courthouse. There was talk of perhaps encouraging employees of businesses on the square not to use the parking spots directly in front of the stores.

Committee member Carolyn Whitaker threw out the idea of having an electric trolley system to shuttle people in and out of the square. It could run on scheduled times.

Making a name

Members kicked around ideas on how to develop a greater presence on the internet. They all agreed the internet would play a significant role in their ability to find folks who want to come here. The group discussed developing a letterhead for its official communications.

Late night

When the meeting started at 6, Williston said he’d try to keep things moving along and conclude the meeting by 7. But the ideas kept coming and the discussions never ceased. As 8 p.m. approached, Williston said “we’re going to get locked out of our building here shortly if we don’t wrap up.”

They’ll formally resume their revitalization work at their next meeting. It’s scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 19, most likely at Lafayette City Hall, though the location could change.