Home Depot and city government killed Lawrence’s Kmart, the attorney who represents Kmart’s landlord said Tuesday.

Jane Eldredge, an attorney for Pine Ridge Plaza LLC that owns the Kmart site at 31st and Iowa streets, said ongoing construction at the intersection — to make way for the new Home Depot store — helped finish off the struggling retailer.

“They (Kmart) experienced a severe drop in their earnings in the last quarter of 2002,” Eldredge told city commissioners at their meeting. “That coincided with the street being torn up.”

City officials were skeptical.

“I have no way of verifying that,” Mayor Sue Hack said following the meeting. “I haven’t seen the figures, so I couldn’t comment on that.”

City Manager Mike Wildgen noted Lawrence’s Kmart was one of 326 stores the Detroit-based retailer is closing this year in an effort to emerge from bankruptcy.

“There’s a lot of issues — like the economy — but I don’t believe that (the road project) in and of itself did it,” Wildgen said.

Dan Watkins, Home Depot’s Lawrence attorney, disagreed when told of Eldredge’s comments about Kmart.

“They have a lot of stores closing across the country,” he said. “I’m sure that construction on 31st Street may have had some impact in the short term, but they didn’t make their decision (to close) on that.”

Construction of Home Depot was the city’s catalyst to address growing traffic on 31st Street. In March 2002, the commission approved intersection improvements — including double left-turn lanes on each approach to the intersection — at an estimated cost of $3.2 million.

Home Depot is paying $1.6 million of the intersection costs; the city is paying $1.3 million and the state is kicking in $300,000. The store is expected to open this spring. The street construction began in late September.

The owners of the Kmart property have long contested the intersection improvements, saying they threatened to cut off the flow of vehicles and customers to the store. The property owners even threatened to sue the city on several occasions.

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That argument is nearly resolved. City commissioners indicated Tuesday during the session with Eldredge they would approve a $150,000 payment to Pine Ridge Plaza LLC for property to create better access to the site.

The debate came, however, as Kmart was struggling nationally. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, closing 283 stores at the time. In January, store officials announced the additional closings, including the Lawrence store.

Wildgen suggested that businesses often were inconvenienced by city road projects without being forced to close.

“Development goes on across the city in public right of way, and this is on public right of way,” he said.

“If Kmart was the most important company in the world,” he said, “the improvements were still needed and they’ll still serve the public.”