Master planning for the redevelopment of the old Trappey’s cannery on the banks of the Vermilion River in Lafayette will start this month, developers announced.
The group behind the development has teamed up with a San Antonio-based architecture firm and design team that have worked across the country for the project, which will include brining the 177,000-square-foot cannery back to life as a mixed-used riverfront development where the river meets the Evangeline Thruway.
The group, which include New Orleans developer/architect Marcel Wiznia and Lafayette architect Stephen Ortego, brought on board Lake Flato, an architecture firm that designed the Pearl District in San Antonio, and OJB, a landscape architecture firm that designed large scale parks including The Park at Lakeshore East in Chicago and the Texas A&M Aggie Park in College Station, Texas.
The project will also include master plans for envisioning nearby Beaver Park and Heymann Park along with Lil’ Woods Park. Plans will be unveiled in March and could include retail outlets, restaurants, bars, a hotel, boardwalks and other riverfront amenities.
“We are excited to team up with very talented national firms to turn the old cannery site into the best that it can be,” Ortego said. “A place for all to enjoy the river, whether it be dining on a terrace, strolling the riverbank or kayaking the waters.”
The design team will seek public input on the project and will hold a public charette in February, Ortego said.
The Louisiana National Register of Historic Places review committee recently approved the individual listing of site on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to the efforts of Kelly Calhoun with Calhoun Preservation and contributing writer Mary Shuman, Ortego said. Their research and narrative writing included interviewing Randolph Trappey Jr., who operated the plant for decades and is now in his mid 90s.
The site was first purchased by Bernard Francis Trappey in 1929 and became the company’s primary canning plant until it closed in 1991.
The building is within the Trappey’s Economic Development District, one of five EDDs issued by Lafayette Consolidated Government. Each district collects a 2% hotel occupancy tax and another 1% sales tax except the Trappey district, which collects a 2% sales tax, but the amount the Trappey’s EDD gathers is minimal compared to others.
The ownership group, Trappey Riverfront Development LLC, bought the property in March for $1 million, records show.
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