Another longtime campus bar in the Oread Neighborhood turns out the lights.

First it was The Crossing – a popular student watering hole – near 12th and Indiana streets that closed to make way for a proposed hotel development. Now, just around the corner, Bullwinkles, another longtime college hangout has closed its doors.

The bar at 1344 Tenn. closed as the students left town for the winter break, property owner Andy Lynn, owner of a Kansas City, Mo., real estate company, said.

The closing might be opening up a window for another round of change for the Oread neighborhood. Lynn not only owns the Bullwinkles property but also owns a five-plex apartment building to the east of the bar and a single-family home to the north of the bar. He said he’s open to selling all the properties to a developer who wants to tackle an ambitious infill development project.

“Maybe a Laundromat or a coffee shop or some type of neighborhood commercial use,” Lynn said. “I think there are quite a few opportunities because of its location.”

Talk of change is becoming more frequent in the Oread neighborhood after members of the Gene Fritzel Construction Co. proposed a multimillion dollar, seven-story hotel project for the southern edge of the neighborhood. That project is trying to win City Hall approval.

Several neighbors have predicted that the project – slated to be an investment of at least $30 million – will spark others to take a second look at the neighborhood.

“It sure seems like it is on the cusp of change,” said James Dunn, a longtime Oread resident and past president of the neighborhood association. “I think it either has to get a lot better or a lot worse.”

But exactly how the neighborhood should change is an open question, said Candice Davis, another longtime resident. Residents are split on the hotel and other issues. She’s optimistic that the hotel development could provide needed city attention to the neighborhood to more aggressively address issues of party houses, noise and trash problems.

She’s not sure, though, whether it is time to start doing major redevelopment of sites like Bullwinkles and the handful of other nodes of commercially zoned property that exist in the neighborhood. She said more neighborhood-friendly uses like a coffee shop or sandwich shop would be nice, but she said the neighborhood also has to recognize its strong student population as well.

“I’m trying to be fair here and recognize that we live in a mixed neighborhood,” Davis said. “I understand I can’t have everything my way. I would like to have some new uses, but it does make sense to have some bars close to the university because, let’s face it, students do drink a lot. I would rather have them drinking at a bar than at a house party in the neighborhood.”

Lynn, the property owner, said he’s not promising any changes for the property. He said it is still possible – perhaps even likely – that he’ll simply find a new operator to restart a bar business at the location. The building is one of the few that can legally operate as a bar in such a residential area. The building is grandfathered in as a bar under the city’s code. But there’s also a provision that if it sits empty for more than 12 months that it would lose its grandfathered provision.

“It may be that a bar is its best use,” Lynn said. “It is one of the last 3.2 bars within walking distance of the campus and fraternities. It is a place that people don’t have to drive to, and that is important.

“Plus, I just think it is kind of a campus tradition, and I would hate to lose another one of those.”