Dennis Brown can’t believe a building this big is producing a discussion this small.

Brown, president of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, said he’s concerned community members don’t grasp the significance of a seven-story hotel proposed for the edge of Kansas University at 12th and Indiana streets.

“I absolutely do not think the community understands how big this building would be,” Brown said. “I think there is a legitimate concern that this building would overwhelm the historic district and dominate it.”

City commissioners tonight are scheduled to debate issues ranging from how the project fits in with the surrounding historic neighborhood to rezoning and preliminary development plan issues.

The height and mass of the building is expected to be a major topic, but several city commissioners said they don’t think the height is a deal-killer.

“I understand the concerns, but you also have to look at the environs and the large buildings that are nearby on the campus,” Mayor Sue Hack said. “That gives me a much greater comfort level. I don’t feel like it is being plopped down in the middle of a field and will stand out like a sore thumb.”

Groups take sides

Members of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, the Kansas Preservation Alliance and the city’s Historic Resources Commission are urging the city to force the development group – led by members of the Gene Fritzel Construction Co. – to redesign the project by reducing its height.

Members of the development group have submitted a new report providing a detailed financial analysis showing that removing the top two floors – as has been suggested by the LPA – would cause the hotel to operate at a loss of about $900,000 per year.

Commissioners said they’ll be looking at those numbers closely at tonight’s meeting, which is slated to begin at 6:35 p.m. at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.

“I think the figures they have provided us are fairly convincing, provided that the assumptions they are based on are correct,” Commissioner Boog Highberger said. “I would like a better way to verify that.”

The building as designed would be a little more than 90 feet tall. That is taller than the US Bank building at 900 Mass., at 77 feet; the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Mass., at 63 feet, and the Hobbs Taylor Lofts in the 700 block of New Hampshire Street at 76 feet, historic resources commissioners have said. The Historic Resources Commission has unanimously recommended denial of the project because members believe the design would overwhelm the historic neighborhood.

The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission is recommending approval of the project, but it primarily looked at whether a hotel would be appropriate for the site. Thus far, no one is strongly objecting to the idea of a hotel on the site.

The Oread Neighborhood Association, however, has not opposed the project. Key neighborhood leaders have said they would prefer that the project be smaller, but recognize that if it becomes too small it could become unfeasible from an economic standpoint.

“We believe that overall this large-scale project could help the neighborhood stabilize and improve blighted property,” Candice Davis, a member of the Oread Neighborhood Association board, wrote in a letter to commissioners.

Financing issues

The site is the former home of The Crossing, a longtime college bar. It also includes the building that formerly housed the Yello Sub sandwich shop, an apartment complex at 1140 Ind., a two-story home that has been converted to a boarding house at 1142 Ind., and a two-story home that has been converted to a commercial building at 1144 Ind. All the buildings would be demolished.

The development group is also seeking is to use public financing to help pay for about $11 million in parking and public street improvements. The group is proposing to use tax increment financing and a transportation development district. Both mechanisms would allow future sales and property taxes that are above and beyond the amount now generated by the property to be earmarked to help pay for parking and other improvements.

The city legally could be held responsible to pay for the bonds if the project does not generate the expected amount of tax revenue. But the development group has said it would sign a contract agreeing to use private funds to pay for any shortfall.

At tonight’s meeting, commissioners must decide whether to move ahead on a $25,000 study that would examine how much tax revenue the project reasonably could generate.