Virginia Cale wasn’t quite sure what to expect last year when she learned the trailer park where she lived was to be converted into an office complex.

But she didn’t expect the new property owner would help her find a new, better home — and pay for a mover.

Randy Guffey, a temporary laborer working for Deer Valley Commercial Construction, carries some belongings of trailer park resident Virginia Cale to a moving truck. The trailer park where Cale lives on East 23rd Street is being developed into an office complex. The new owner of the property, Larry Midyett, is helping the tenants find new homes and move their belongings.

“I guess it is all going to work out all right,” said Cale, 74, who had lived at the unnamed park at 1045 E. 23rd St. for four months. “I don’t know what would have happened if he wouldn’t have helped. I was worried for a while.”

The new owner, Larry Midyett, owner of Lawrence’s Century 21 Miller Midyett Real Estate, said he planned to have all 36 mobile homes off the property by early March. That will clear the way for a new office building to house his company, two office/service buildings and three duplexes.

Midyett said he wanted to be sensitive to the park’s residents, rather than just posting a notice and telling them to leave.

“I don’t want to have someone out on the street without a place to live,” he said.

Instead, Midyett has found new homes for Cale and four other residents in one of the rental properties he manages. He’s also hired, at his expense, a company to move those people who aren’t physically able to move themselves.

Midyett said he thought closing the trailer park would improve most people’s lives. The property had been the subject of several housing code violations during the two years before the purchase.

6News video: Mobile home park to be removed (02-11-05)

“I really think it hasn’t been a very satisfactory residential area, especially for families with kids,” Midyett said. “The trailers were really crammed in there, and some of them had been there for nearly 60 years.”

Cale said she wouldn’t miss the trailer park.

Cale, second from left, talks with Deer Valley Commercial Construction owner Jeff Perry, second from right, about her new home as Guffey, left, and worker David Koone, right, wait in the living room Friday.

“I’m glad to get out of there in a way,” she said. “There is a lot of trouble over there. I didn’t like the neighbors. I used to stand on my porch and they would laugh at me. I think it will be a good thing that they do away with it.”

Workers on Friday moved the last of Cale’s possessions to a townhome apartment north of 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue.

“This is a lot nicer,” Cale said.

Midyett said he was hiring a salvage company to haul away the trailers.

He said all but seven of the original 36 tenants had moved off the property. He said he had offered assistance to some of the remaining residents and that others were making their own arrangements.

Movers haul Virginia Cale's belongings into her new home at Pine Haven Apartments, north of 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue. Larry Midyett, owner of Lawrence's Century 21 Miller Midyett Real Estate, helped Cale find the home and paid for the movers. His company is building new offices on the site of a trailer park where Cale had lived.

“We are trying to help anybody who really does need help,” said Jeff Perry, owner of Deer Valley Commercial Construction, which is building the new office and was hired by Midyett to move some of the residents. “Larry is definitely going above and beyond what he has to do. He could have just given them their notice and turned off the utilities.”

Jennifer Stewart, who lives in the neighborhood directly south of the trailer park, said she was glad to see change coming to the area, especially because Midyett apparently was being sensitive to the trailer park’s residents.

“I think our main concern was that people who were displaced could find adequate housing,” Stewart said. “It sounds like a good thing. I think everyone will be happy to see the trailer park go.”