South Bend's Lafayette Building's redevelopment project delayed by five months

SOUTH BEND — Plans to redevelop the historic office space of the Lafayette Building downtown will take just a little longer.

At its Thursday, July 25 meeting, the South Bend Redevelopment Commission granted the developer’s request to extend the due diligence period until the end of the year. Under a previous agreement, due diligence was supposed to be completed this month.

The building, located opposite the County-City Building , is more than 120 years old. Lafayette OpCo, the developer, plans to convert the second to fifth floors into apartments and have retail on the ground floor. Because apartments on the upper floors will be heavier than the original offices, the developer will use the extension granted by the city to continue analyzing the structural soundness of the building before going forward with construction.

So far, the city had partnered with the developer to evaluate the structure.

“We discovered things that we did not know … like in the 1930s, there was a fire in the basement that no one had really ever investigated fully,” said Joseph Molnar, a property development manager with the city’s department of community investment .

Molnar said that though the due diligence is taking longer than expected, the information being gathered is essential, no matter who ends up redeveloping the building.

“We're trying to figure out how much of the interior structure has to be rebuilt in order to hold the weight (of the apartments),” Molnar said.

The redevelopment commission had approved an agreement to sell the Lafayette Building and the parking lot nearby for $10,000 last September on the condition that the developer spend at least $8 million on the project. City officials anticipate the sale will be finalized early next year.

Once construction starts, the city plans to commit $750,000 in tax increment financing money towards improving the exterior of the building.

Email Tribune staff writer Angela Mathew at amathew@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend's Lafayette Building's redevelopment project delayed by five months