A Prairie Village company is betting that plenty of former Kansas University alumni will want to return to Lawrence to retire in style.

Continuum Associates, a Prairie Village retirement community company, plans to build a multimillion dollar retirement village on about 20 acres near 24th Street and Inverness Drive in southwest Lawrence. The community, tentatively named Meadowlark Retirement Village, will have more than 150 apartments and nearly 70 single-family homes and duplexes it will sell to adults 55 years old and older.

“We think Lawrence is a great city for this type of thing,” said Chuck Bryant, an associate with the company. “Lots of people have strong ties with the cities they’ve gone to school in, and when they retire, they want to come back to a place where they have great memories.

“We think KU is sort of a magnet for this type of development.”

Plans for the project have been submitted for approval by planning and city commissioners. Bryant said the group hoped to begin construction by year’s end, with some units ready for occupancy by the middle of next year.

Bryant said the project would try to tap into the upscale retirement market.

“We’re looking to try to create a country club type of environment,” Bryant said. “There will be a clubhouse and we’ll have lots of programs designed to encourage people to intermingle.”

The clubhouse will feature a swimming pool, meeting rooms, specialized activity rooms and possibly a cocktail lounge.

Another unique aspect of the project is that it will offer full-sized homes for sale. It will include 61 single family, three-bedroom homes for sale, in addition to 14 duplex units, on the south side of 24th Street.

On the north side of 24th Street, the company will build a three-story building with 86 independent living and 70 assisted-living apartments, plus a 24-bed unit for residents with Alzheimer’s disease.

“We stop short of being a nursing home,” Bryant said. “If people get to the point where they are bedridden or have to be cared for constantly, then they’ll probably have to look for another place to move.”

Bryant declined to release financial numbers for the project, including how much houses and apartments will sell for.

The project would be the first built by Continuum, but company officials have been studying it for three years, Bryant said.

“Our studies show that the market is there for this type of development and the market is growing,” he said. “By focusing on upscale, we’re spinning this a little differently than what other people are doing.”

Maclyn Pettengill, director of marketing and fund development for Lawrence’s Presbyterian Manor, said she generally agreed the market would be able to absorb the new project.

“When I look at our market, I know our duplexes and our two-bedroom apartments are always full and our assisted-living units are almost always full,” Pettengill said. “It’s pretty easy to sell Lawrence as a place to retire right now.”