The owner of a recycling center in Lawrence and a tire shop and farm store in Ottawa is hoping to open up yet another retail shop.

Right in front of a dismantled, 467-acre fertilizer plant.

Bo Killough is seeking permission to open a Town & Country Supply store at the former Farmland Industries fertilizer plant at the southeastern edge of Lawrence, along the north side of Kansas Highway 10.

Killough wants to lease Farmland’s former office building at the plant, which has been largely vacant since Farmland closed the plant in 2001 and filed for bankruptcy protection less than a year later.

Killough is owner of the 12th and Haskell Bargain Center, a recycling center and sales shop at 1146 Haskell Ave. He also owns Poindexter Tire & Wheel, in northern Ottawa, and recently opened Ottawa Town & Country Supply at the southern end of town.

The Town & Country Supply concept at the Lawrence site would be limited to three years. That’s according to an application filed this week by FI Remediation Trust, the liquidating trust for what remains of Farmland’s assets, including the former fertilizer plant.

The trust wants the Douglas County Board of Zoning Appeals, during a meeting Aug. 18, to approve a “special-use exemption, for a limited term of three years,” that would allow for retail uses on the industrial site. The exemption then would need to be approved by the Douglas County Commission.

Charles Jones, a county commissioner who has been working on plans for the Farmland site for more than a year, said he didn’t like the idea of allowing Killough or anyone else to open up a retail shop at a site where the community wants to see a future industrial park.

For one, Jones said, elected officials have been telling other interested parties that nothing other than industrial uses would be allowed at the former Farmland site.

“And they’re fighting so hard to get this facility in place, I don’t think they’ll gracefully pick up and leave when it’s time to go,” Jones said.

Marilyn Bittenbender, a commercial broker marketing the property on behalf of the trust, said that she had received interest from three groups for the office building. The 20,000-square-foot brick building is being offered for lease at $160,000 a year.

No lease has been signed for the property, but she acknowledged Thursday that one group had indicated “significant” interest and had taken part in several tours of the building.

Anyone that leases any of the buildings on site will understand that they won’t be able to secure a long-term arrangement, she said, at least not until a comprehensive plan is established for future use.

“It would be a win-win situation if we could have a viable economic use there during this transition period,” Bittenbender said.