Lafayette’s Planning Commission on Tuesday night approved a proposal to transform the city’s Feed and Grain property with a modern take — albeit a touch that remains murky as the developer combs for an exact tenant.
Details for 4,032-square-foot, two-story building have remained scarce since the developer’s early indications that the site could be transformed into a brewpub aptly named “Feed and Grain.”
Laurence “Renzo” Verbeck, of the architecture firm Verbeck Design Studios, walked back the suggestion that plans for a brewpub were set in stone last month.
“It’s important to note that there is not a proposed use of the building,” he told Lafayette’s Planning Commission on Tuesday night. “The building is laid out for multiple retail bays that could accommodate multiple commercial uses.”
Verbeck said that building’s tenant could yield “anything from a coffee shop to a dentist’s office to a restaurant.”
Such a use could include a brewpub, Verbeck intimated last month — as was first reported — though in the weeks since he has demurred on questions as to what exact business could reside at the 816 E. Baseline Road address.
Despite the vagueness of the plans, however, residents in attendance voiced concerns regarding traffic, noise and impact on the community — one that has remained relatively quaint during the years of Lafayette’s development boom.
“In place of the Feed and Grain store there is a possibility that there will be a brewpub,” resident Karen Norback told commissioners on Tuesday. “This is an odd business to put at the end of such a quiet residential street.
“Though it’s long been a commercial property,” she added, “the use is not the same. The Feed and Grain was open during the day and you would only see a car or two while people were stopping to buy animal food and hay bales.”
Calls to preserve the character of Old Town Lafayette’s vintage, often-eclectic feel have persisted for decades as residents resist the swell of growth around them.
The pending land-use application proposes one commercial building on the property, according to Verbeck, a space he said is ideally suited for “a larger restaurant using the whole building, or perhaps a few separate, smaller operators like a coffee shop, bakery or other retail/commercial uses.”
“I know you have no say over what type of business goes into the building,” Norback pleaded with commissioners, “but you have the ability to minimize the potential impacts on neighbors.”
Tuesday’s meeting came after the previous public hearing — scheduled for last month — was scuttled amid questions concerning adequate public outreach, according to officials.
Some of the project’s neighbors said that the developer failed to notify them about a March 23 community meeting — a necessary step in the development process prior to city consideration.
Residents who live within 750 feet of the grain elevator and silos and should have received notice of the meeting — according to regulations under the city’s public notification process — said they found themselves blindsided.
“I know there’s a lot of opposition to this,” Commissioner Dana Kusjanovic said prior to the vote Tuesday, speaking to the slew of neighbors who spoke out against it. “But on that same line of thinking, we have seen so many projects come our way that have been met with so much opposition, and then the next project comes along and it’s worse and people say, ‘can we go back to the first thing they offered us?’
“To the neighbors,” she added, “there has been a lot of thoughtfulness into this.”
Anthony Hahn: 303-473-1422, hahna@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/_anthonyhahn
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