Hospital signs lease-purchase agreement on Coolidge Street building.
Lafayette General Medical Center is continuing to buy property and expand its medical complex in the Oil Center. Earlier this month LGMC signed a lease-purchase agreement for the former Begneaud's Fine Gifts at 1164 Coolidge Blvd. but doesn't have definite plans for the site just yet.
LGMC spokesman Daryl Cetnar says the approximately 4,000-square-foot Begneaud's location will temporarily be used as a construction staging area of sorts for the hospital's planned $55 million expansion. "Begneaud's is going to be a place to put things during construction," Cetnar says.
The project gets under way in August and includes a new operating room facility - "completely new operating rooms, all of them," Cetnar says - and new emergency department. Additionally, a six-story parking garage on the Heymann Center side of the medical facility will be constructed on land the hospital is leasing from Lafayette Consolidated Government. The parking tower will have 350 spaces with direct access to the hospital, Cetnar says, noting that the Heymann Center will also utilize the garage.
Begneaud's Fine Gifts, which was owned by Louise Ganucheau, recently relocated to the Oil Center Gardens as Stella's. Ganucheau has retained the business, which offers a large selection of Vera Bradley bags, Tyler Candles and baby clothes and accessories.