LG City Manager Talks About Downtown Building Upgrades

La Grange City Manager Jack Thompson reports on some recently developments on the Courthouse Square.

The owner of the former Frank’s Place and Cafe Dobre building on the Square have undertaken major renovations recently.

“They’ve been diligently working on it to get it up to par to rent and get a tenant in there,” Thompson said.

In addition, he said the owner of the Hermes Building has been remodeling the upstairs. It will be used for office space, he said.

“The older buildings (on the square) are really cool,” he said. “They give a good sense of history and place for the square. It looks really good and inviting. Some of them do need some work, and that does present sort of a roadblock in some instances to getting tenants in there.”

Ever since the City hired him earlier this year, Thompson has been pushing for more retail development in La Grange, especially restaurants. But bringing restaurants to downtown isn’t easy or cheap.

“If you want to do restaurants, you’ve got to put commercial kitchens in there, and that can get expensive,” he said. “You do have some hurdles with some of the older buildings. But it’s worth the investment to put money into them and get a more robust downtown.” This summer, the La Grange Economic Development Corporation purchased the former D&G Office Products store on the square. Thompson said the EDC wants to remodel those two buildings and lease them to restaurants.

“We want to bring some more energy into the downtown area,” he said. “It allows us to carry the load a little bit in getting those buildings fixed up and ready to rent.”

Thompson said the City has already been in talks with some restaurants about leasing those spaces.

“We’ve got a really good response from several restaurants that want to be in the space,” he said. “We’re having conversations with them. I’m holding back to see exactly what their needs will be before we go in and tear everything out and remodel the interior.”

The City also recently purchased the former Fayette Electric headquarters property.

The City plans to convert it into a public event space.

In addition, he said, LG Print Company is making upgrades to the second floor of their building on Travis St. The City recently amended the downtown zoning ordinance so that La Grange Distilling Company can open a storefront and gin-making school inside one of the buildings on Travis St.

“We’ve got people actively trying to make upgrades and bring more activity and development to the downtown area,” Thompson said.