LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — After years of trying, a new Northeast Regional Library is a step closer to being built by the Lafayette Public Library Board of Control.

The Lafayette Parish School Board discussed the potential sale or lease of about six acres of land to the public library board at Wednesday’s school board meeting. The school board currently owns approximately 37.5 acres of undeveloped land with frontage on both Moss Street and Louisiana Avenue.

This property is near parcels previously considered for purchase by the library’s board of control for the construction of the library.

Efforts to build the library have been ongoing since first being approved in 2019, when the City-Parish Council voted to use $12 million in library reserve funds for a new regional library on the northside of the Parish and to fund an expansion at the North Regional Library in Carencro. In February 2022, a meeting of the library board turned into a heated debate by those impatient for the library to be built.

The approval was given at Wednesday’s meeting to move forward with negotiations in good faith, according to Lafayette Parish School Board President Tommy Angelle.

“It makes a good impression on two public entities working together for the benefit of everybody in Lafayette Parish,” Angelle said. “And I know the citizens over there have been looking for a plot of land in that specific area for many years.”

Officials said they wanted to make sure plans for the library are not stalled by a property search, when LPSS has land available.