An expansion on the books for years and in the works for months finally is getting under way at Meadowbrook Apartments.

Excavation started this week on an eight-acre site at the northwest corner of Crestline Drive and Bob Billings Parkway. Crews from King’s Construction, of Oskaloosa, started uprooting walnut, oak and other trees on the grassy slope overlooking Kansas University’s West Campus, and a handful of folks have stopped by to ask about what’s going on.

Each time, Lonnie Fangehr provides the same answer.

“It’s development,” said the foreman operator, part of the seven-member clearing crew on the site.

The excavation work is making room for 102 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, plus offices, meeting rooms, a clubhouse, exercise center and outdoor pool.

First on the construction list: the pool, plus a building for “amenities” and a handful of apartments, said Don Cole, Meadowbrook’s general manager. Those features will be located near the corner of Crestline and Bob Billings Parkway, leaving room to the north for two new apartment buildings.

The estimated $2.4 million project is set to fulfill phase 10 of the original Meadowbrook development plan, born in the late 1960s and developed into the 1970s. The first nine phases followed one after another, creating one of the city’s largest rental communities with offerings ranging from studios to townhomes.

But Meadowbrook – still owned by its original investors, Bob Moore and Duane Schwada – hasn’t expanded the 500-unit complex for at least 20 years.

Employees of King's Construction, of Oskaloosa, have completed much of their tree-clearing work northwest of Bob Billings Parkway and Crestline Drive. Meadowbrook Apartments soon will begin expansion of its complex, adding a pool, clubhouse, exercise cener, offices and apartments.

“They just took a breather,” Cole said. “Now they’re moving ahead.”

The expansion comes as many Lawrence landlords report a glut of apartments on the market, after developers spent much of the past decade adding to the city’s rental offerings.

Bob Ebey, vice president of Landlords of Lawrence Inc., said that vacancy rates were running about 12 percent to 14 percent in Lawrence. The rate had been 3 percent back in 1996, leading developers to take out building permits for 804 new apartments that year alone, the beginning of a construction spree that in recent months has started to squeeze landlords.

“This town is overbuilt, on paper,” said Ebey, who figures that there are 18,000 rental properties in Lawrence, or about 54 percent of the residential market. “It (the vacancy rate) was 12 or 14 percent last year, and I’m sure it’s going to go up.”

Cole isn’t worried. He sees the Meadowbrook project as essential for keeping up with new complexes in town, where pools, workout areas and business centers have become the norm, not the exception.

Meadowbrook’s occupancy rate remains above 90 percent, he said, but the rate had been 100 percent just three or four years ago.

“The market is oversaturated, but we need to add some, what I call ‘new paint,'” said Cole, who has managed the complex since 1989. “That’s a reason we did this – not only to catch up on the amenities, but also to offer something new that we couldn’t offer before.”

Meadowbrook still will have room to grow, even after the latest expansion. There are at least two phases left on the complex’s original development plan, covering about eight acres.