Kansas University’s campus living room is about to get some new residents.

A pair of Lawrence businesses have won contracts to open stores in the Kansas Union before classes begin Aug. 21.

Westside Deli & Market, 4931 W. Sixth St., will expand into the third-floor space that previously was home to the Prairie Room restaurant and Wheat Wavers snack bar.

Footprints, 1339 Mass., will open an outlet shoe store on the third floor in a spot that previously housed part of the Hawk’s Nest dining room, which closed after another dining area in the union opened.

Both businesses will keep their other Lawrence locations open, but said the new projects should allow them to better tap into the lucrative student market.

“I think it will be huge for us because we’re clear on the other side of town right now,” said Michael Levy, owner of Westside Deli. “We’re not really on the mind of a lot of students because a lot of them are more apt to go downtown or somewhere closer to campus.”

For Footprints, which sells Birkenstock shoes and sandals, the reason behind the expansion was to make a greater effort to add student customers.

“We have a retail store just four blocks from the union, so at first glance it was like, ‘Why bother?'” said Mick Ranney, owner. “But I think we have kind of ignored the students. We haven’t taken them for granted, but we haven’t marketed to them any differently than we have anybody else. This should give us the opportunity to do that.”

The deals continue a trend started by the union last year to add more commercial businesses to the building, said Pat Beard, director of building services for the KU Memorial Corp., the nonprofit group that runs the union.

In December, the union added STA Travel. In the spring, it added a Great Clips hair service and T-Mobile wireless phone store.

“We’ve been trying to find services that still meet our mission of being the ‘living room’ of the campus, but also are services that students and faculty need,” Beard said.

Union officials said they thought dining service business would increase if the Prairie Room was replaced by a business that had greater name recognition in the community.

Jason Gyles, general manager for the Westside Deli & Market, shows off a Blue Ribbon Reuben sandwich that's a house speciality. The sandwich will be one of the featured dishes at the deli's new location, which will open next month in the Kansas Union.

Levy said the new restaurant, which officially will be called Westside Deli & Market at the Union, would have a wide selection of menu offerings, including soups, salads, sandwiches, desserts and entrees such as steak and fresh seafood.

He plans to design the restaurant to appeal to both students and faculty by offering full-service dining and a take-out window.

“We’re going to have some really nice entrees for lunch,” Levy said. “We really want to encourage faculty and staff to bring distinguished guests there. We don’t want them to have to leave campus to go to lunch. But we also want to have very affordable options for students.”

The restaurant will be open from about 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. As part of the deal, Westside also won daily use of one of the Kansas Union meeting rooms to provide catered lunches to university groups.

Ranney said his KU Footprints store would be different from the Massachusetts Street location, stocking only closeout and other outlet store items.

“There is an awful lot of traffic that goes by there,” Ranney said. “We’re hoping they might buy something on impulse if it is at a great price.”

Beard said about 1 million people a year walked through the student union.