The state’s efforts to cultivate a biosciences industry could provide Lawrence with its prime economic opportunity to grow in coming years and decades, experts said.

The 0 million Multidisciplinary Research Building on Kansas University's west campus will add 45,000 square feet of interdisciplinary labs and lab support space. The state's efforts to cultivate a biosciences industry could provide Lawrence with a prime economic opportunity in coming years, experts say.

Kansas University “is certainly a great asset in that regard,” said Steve Kelly, Kansas’ deputy secretary of commerce. “We need to be in a position – and the university needs to be in a position – to support the growth of that industry.”

The Kansas Legislature in 2004 agreed to pump $580 million into the state’s life science industry, including incentives for university research.

To provide such support to biosciences and other industries, observers said, Lawrence must move ahead with plans to create a new industrial park with sites ready for building laboratories and manufacturing plants.

To lure prospective businesses, one KU official said, Lawrence will increasingly need to think of itself as part of the broader Kansas City community instead of taking a go-it-alone approach to economic development.

“I think we’re making a mistake thinking of Lawrence as a meaningful and intact economic unit,” said Steven Maynard-Moody, director of the Policy Research Institute at KU. “I think we need to think about the Kansas City metropolitan area. I think Lawrence’s future is increasingly tied up in that.”

But that effort already is under way.

“They’ve had their toe dipped in the regional pool for some time,” said Tim Cowden of the Kansas City Area Development Council, which has included Lawrence since 1990. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see them wade in hip-deep in the near future.”

Economic plan

The city has an economic development plan, approved in 2003, which names biosciences, information technology, aviation, agriculture and light manufacturing as the chief areas where Lawrence’s economy can grow and develop in coming years.

But, the plan states, “Douglas County must identify land for future business and corporate business parks that takes advantage of the airport, the interstate highway system and the westward growth of Johnson County. Within the next few years, the city and county commissions shall identify and designate at least 1,000 acres of land for industrial expansion over the next 25 years.”

Two years later, that goal is on its way to becoming reality. The Lawrence-Douglas County Economic Development Board on Dec. 5 agreed to recommend two sites – the former Farmland Industries fertilizer plant at the southeastern edge of town and an unspecified area near Lawrence Municipal Airport – as locations for future industrial development, as well as the preservation of open space.

Without industrial sites, Kelly said, it’s harder to lure a company to town.

“Companies are typically working on timelines” to get an operation started, Kelly said. “I know that Lawrence has been looking at the possibility of having additional sites.”

Lavern Squier, president of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, said the city can improve its planning to be ready for economic opportunities. Officials should think beyond the next five years when making planning decisions, he said.

But he said, Lawrence has already done a good job in some respects – in the creation of East Hills Business Park (which is nearing capacity) and in the fostering of an artistic culture that is attractive to companies and their employees.

Now, Maynard-Moody said, the trick is to integrate those qualities into the larger Kansas City picture.

“Clearly, the biosciences is part of that,” he said. “We’re connecting to what’s going on with Stowers and what’s going on on campus.”

Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City cooperates with KU on bioscience research.

He acknowledged such prospects might alarm Lawrence residents. But Lawrence has already benefited from proximity to Kansas City, he said – just look at the Hallmark plant here in town, spun off from that company’s headquarters 45 minutes to the east.

“I know that brings up fears of bedroom community,” he said of connecting to Kansas City. “I personally don’t think Lawrence will ever be a bedroom community – because there will always be a core of people around the university and not just the faculty.”

It’s Lawrence’s status as a university town, Cowden said, that gives the city a unique status in the Kansas City region.

“Lawrence is a dynamic component of our product portfolio,” he said. “When I think of Lawrence, I think of a community that is young, and vibrant and educated – very attractive to a host of business types that are attracted to the Kansas City region.”

Squier said Lawrence should, however, hang on to the fact that – unlike the Johnson County suburbs – it is physically separate from Kansas City, while still being close. That helps Lawrence promote itself as a “small town” with a high quality of life.

“Increasingly, we’re not swept up into – as in losing identity to – the Kansas City metro area, but we can tout our proximity to that region,” Squier said.

Because of Lawrence’s location between the metropolitan areas of Topeka and Kansas City, Squier said, economic growth is almost inevitable. But the city will have to press its advantages.

“I think Lawrence has a fantastic future in front of it,” he said, “if we want to seize the opportunity.”