ST. MARTIN PARISH — For some University of Louisiana at Lafayette Community Design Workshop students involved in the city’s 30-year master vision plan, the project hits home, quite literally.
“Both sides of my family are from St. Martinville and they both contributed in different ways, they made a point to contribute,” graduate student Christian Willis said.
Willis is the grandson of former Mayor Earl Willis and said it's an honor to contribute to shaping the future.
“The St. Martinville I imagined would be when I was growing up there when everything is full of people, business is booming people are walking around in the streets people are all outside,” Willis said.
“That’s what I’m hoping to see.”
The year-long project, also a collaboration with La Louisane Consulting, allows for the community to include its vision of the future as well with various maps showing new infrastructure, buildings, neighborhoods, and green spaces that could come to fruition.
Mayor Willis who was behind the idea says the project is about maintaining the historical charm of the city- while also drawing more people to live here through restoration.
“What we don’t want is people to come back and say 'man this is the same old St. Martinville',” Willis said.
“We want it to be different you know we still wanna keep our historical look at hometown look.”
Graduate student Mya Andrus is working on the restoration of Main Street’s building facades. Andrus’ personal ties to the city serve as her inspiration.
“It’s very exciting,” Andrus said.
“I wanna say my mom was able to tell me a few things about old St. Martinville and really bringing it back to life would be pretty exciting to show my future family.”
Her vision is to also create more traffic in areas that were once busy.
“We’re looking to bring the community back together as one,” Andrus said.
“Show them the possibilities what they can have in their community. Not necessarily changing anything about them but showing them everything they are capable of in themselves.”
Next month the city will hold two town hall meetings for community input on the project on the north and south sides of town.
