Buchanan Garage
COLUMN: The troubling economics of fixing the Buchanan garage
The Buchanan garage is a dilapidated property on prime real estate Downtown that’s been condemned because of government neglect. While it’d be great to get it back into commerce, the economics of Mayor-President Guillory’s plan don’t add up and they risk the financial health of the courthouse and the jail.
LETTER: The cost of doing nothing on the Buchanan garage
Our inability to work together has slowed and stymied progress in the city of Lafayette, while spurring much more expensive growth in the outskirts of our parish.
LETTER: Spend public dollars on a new parking garage, not new office space
How not to sell a parking garage
VISION 2020: Tear down the parish jail and courthouse to make room for Lafayette’s future
To regain the ground our economy’s lost, we need to take bold swings at projects with catalytic potential. That potential exists in a waterfall hidden under the parish jail and courthouse.
VISION 2020: Let’s prove our faith in Downtown by investing in it
LCG balances the budget and avoids cuts with plan to sell Buchanan garage to private interests
The council and administration patched an unexpected hole in the current budget with a windfall of sales tax collections and a new solution to the the Buchanan garage problem: sell it to private interests.
The Buchanan garage problem
It’s a microcosm of the state of our current affairs — a parish asset, that’s really a liability, decaying from neglect with no solution in sight.
The parish is broke, and it’s a drag on the city’s finances
In the upcoming fiscal year the city general fund will bring in just over $100 million and end the year with a fund balance of almost $40 million. The parish general fund will bring in less than $12 million and end the year with a fund balance of about $100,000.