A recently hired ambassador group will start working on the streets of downtown Lafayette the week of Festival International.
Block by Block has already arrived in Lafayette and is hiring staffers to be on the streets next week, said Kevin Blanchard, CEO of the Downtown Development Authority.
The crew will consist of four full-time employees walking downtown streets seven days a week doing tasks such as picking up trash, assisting visitors, cleaning graffiti, maintaining landscaping efforts and other duties, Blanchard said during a recent meeting with local commercial real estate agents.
Funding for the program will come from the Downtown Economic Development District and will cost about $375,000 annually for the equivalent of four full-time staffers. Currently the area is maintained by 2 1/2 staffers at a cost of $70,000, with $50,000 coming from Lafayette Consolidated Government and the rest from DDA.
The EDD's balance currently sits at just over $2.2 million and collects about $600,000 a year, Blanchard said.
The crew has hired an operations manager and is interviewing others to join the staff, Blanchard said. The manager has worked for the company in larger metros in Texas and understands how their system works, he said.
The company sent representatives to Lafayette on March 29 for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Big Event day and in two hours, removed all stickers off poles downtown that had been there for years, he said. Trucks and equipment are being delivered this week.
“We’re going to get reports every month on what they’ve been up to,” Blanchard said. “People are very excited. We’ve got little handouts that I’ve been dropping off with downtown businesses. I hope small businesses really feel loved and cared for. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
The crew will be responsible for an area that has 2.3 million visitors each year, with just under half coming from outside Lafayette Parish, DDA data shows. The area is also home to a growing residential and retail presence, along with 37 restaurants.
The staff will be similar to a crew that had the same responsibility in River Ranch when Blanchard worked for Southern Lifestyle Development, he said.
“They weren’t going to walk past a piece of trash because it wasn’t their job,” he said. “They were getting paid better than $10 an hour to do the work. That’s what this ambassador program is. This ambassador program is going to be a game-changer.”
Block By Block is based in Louisville, Kentucky, and is in mid-sized cities and large metros across the country, according to its website. It currently has 150 unique programs in the United States.
Also, downtown officials will start a site development plan this fall that will identify key sites that have potential for development, Blanchard said. Many of those sites could be on the northern edge of downtown by the railroad tracks.
Some of those are owned by the state Department of Transportation and Development, which bought them years ago as part of a previous potential route of the Interstate 49 Connector. One block, which at one time included Coburn’s Electric, could soon be owned by the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority, director Alex Lazard said.
Downtown still needs a critical mass of residents, said Johnny Blancher, owner of Rock ‘n’ Bowl and other downtown properties. Blancher sought to put a 177-unit mixed-use project downtown at the current site of Lafayette City Court before Mayor-President Monique Boulet halted it.
“The runway is really long,” Blancher said of downtown’s potential. “You will be surprised who wants to either own the condo or rent the apartment. We’re the only (city) that hasn’t made a significant push into downtown residential. Those same things are wanted here. We just have to build it.”