One Acadiana shifts focus to ‘new chapter’ on urban development

A little more than a year ago, Harry Weiss left his downtown development director post in Grand Junction, Colorado, and accepted the task of finding ways to revitalize Lafayette, a city eyed to be the center of a massive, elevated interstate project.

“I will tell you that when I started this job, I thought, ‘Well, there’s a challenge,’” he said of the Interstate 49 connector. “How do you build a new, urban-accessible interstate through the core of a city and do that well?”

Now vice president of Urban Revitalization and Development for One Acadiana, Weiss’ job is to find ways to connect surrounding communities within the nine parishes that make up the new regional chamber and improve Lafayette’s urban core.

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