In today's Acadiana Advocate:
A property deal involving the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette and Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center is edging toward completion, involved parties suggest, apparently at its own measured pace.
Once the agreements are completed, the diocese would hold property — a parking lot — on which it can build a new Our Lady of Wisdom church across the street from its present location on East St. Mary Boulevard.
Meanwhile, UL Lafayette would gain land on the opposite end of campus, in the Saints Streets area, which would put UL Lafayette significantly closer to uniting its main campus property to its athletic facilities and its research centers, objectives expressed in the institution’s 2012 master plan.
The University of Louisiana System board in its scheduled meeting Thursday will weigh a request from UL Lafayette President E. Joseph Savoie for authorization to enter into a purchase agreement to acquire Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital land, most of it vacant. UL System spokesperson Cami Geisman said the land that Savoie and UL Lafayette are seeking is a OLOL parcel located adjacent to land owned — but soon to be swapped with UL Lafayette — by the diocese.
The dividing line between OLOL property and diocesan property runs through a parking garage on St. Landry Street, a UL Lafayette spokesman said Tuesday. If UL Lafayette acquires the OLOL land, it will be within a couple of blocks of extending UL Lafayette property holdings to the athletic facilities side of campus.
A spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette said it was her understanding that the land deals won’t be complete this week but will be nearer to completion. An executive summary of what UL is seeking from the system board says the institution “is negotiating the acquisition of the remaining portion of the former Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital property … from Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center Inc.
“The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has requested and been appropriated a total $4.5 million through the Board of Regents in Capital Outlay Funds for this Land Acquisition, as well as the acquisition of the former Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital property, Society of the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Lafayette, previously approved by the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System on Oct. 28, 2021,” according to advance material related to the UL System board meeting, which will be held at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.