Its prime location makes the Farmland Industries property of special interest to Lawrence and Douglas County.

If the price is right and environmental concerns can be addressed, purchasing the Farmland Industries fertilizer plant east of Lawrence might be a wise choice for the city and county.

Lawrence and Douglas County officials are scheduled to discuss the possibility of buying the 467-acre site at a study session at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of buying the site would be to have control of its future use. The plant and the buffer land that surrounds it lie along Kansas Highway 10 between the Lawrence city limits and the East Hills Business Park. If the site can be cleaned up, it would be in high demand for many commercial uses. Acquiring the property would give the city and county the opportunity to control how the land would be used.

Some of the land could be added to the East Hill Business Park where it could be resold to business customers. Expanding the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds also seems like a good investment. And, no matter how the land is developed, the city and county, as owners, could make sure adequate open space is built into the plan.

A planned development of open space and industrial land is exactly the kind of partnership envisioned by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce’s ECO2 task force, which brought together business and environmental representatives. The ECO2 plan to seek a county sales tax to fund such a project has been put on hold, but the kind of development the group advocated still could be a good model.

One of the weaknesses of the ECO2 plan was that it would levy a tax, then decide how to use the proceeds. City and county officials now have the advantage of having a specific project in mind for whatever tax money they need to raise to move it forward.

Money is a major issue in these tight economic times, but an even larger stumbling block could be the environmental condition of the Farmland property. Fifty years of fertilizer production surely have taken their toll on the land, and a considerable cleanup may be necessary. It has been suggested that federal money might be obtained for the cleanup, but that possibility certainly should be nailed down before any purchase offers are made.

As County Commissioner Charles Jones noted, “It’s a big, expensive, long-term project, and we want to make sure we go into it with a strategy and our eyes wide open.”

There are many aspects of the Farmland purchase that would have to be carefully explored, but city and county officials are right to look into what might be a real opportunity for Lawrence.