"Chalfant Industries plans to turn two properties on Main Street, as well as a Bank Street lot into condominiums and retail space."

The Green Mouse says Dan Coffey's already pestering Matt Chalfant about using the condo building's ground-floor garage to park cars and raise money for the household electricity bill at Harvest Homecoming in 2019.

I had the good fortune to chat with Matt a few weeks back and hear of his plans for this development. He already owned the Main Street frontage. The redevelopment commission process was honored (perhaps with Duggins gone, we won't have to append "in the breach" any longer to sentences like this), and the "donation" of the remaining property seems a proper incentive. Most importantly, these empty spaces will be going back on the tax rolls.

Let's be clear about something. I dislike the incentives awarded Flaherty and Collins for its Break Wind Lofts and Duggins Flats, and when the mayor first started babbling about "the business of residency" I was looking for an available bucket in which to deposit my opinion of his sloganeering skills.

But filling these dead zones with places for people to live downtown is absolutely imperative. Are you reading and listening, Mark Seabrook?

Perhaps its best not to wait until 2019 to divulge your plan for infill residency.

Since we already screwed up the potential of the Farmers Market site, where a building like Chalfant's eventually would be constructed, other vacant lots nearby need to be maximized -- and as Chalfant has proven again and again, if the idea is good, the arm's-length list of giveaways can be avoided.

C'mon, GOP delegation. What would YOU do? 

New Albany donates land for $3.2 million condo, commercial development, by Danielle Grady (It Happened in Jeffersonville)

Chalfant Industries plans to turn two properties on Main Street, as well as a Bank Street lot into condominiums and retail space.

NEW ALBANY — The city of New Albany and a developer hope to bring new housing options to downtown New Albany by transforming a vacant Bank Street property into condominiums and commercial space.

Chalfant Industries, Inc., owned by Matt Chalfant, has plans to turn the grassy lawn of 32 Bank St. into 13 condominiums starting at around $200,000 with two spaces for businesses on the first floor.

The land, which until one month ago was owned by the city of New Albany, will join two properties Chalfant has owned for two years on Main Street right next to the Bank Street lot, allowing Chalfant’s project to face the busier downtown street.