News and notes from around town:

A rendering of the design of the proposed Treanor Architects headquarters building at 1040 Vt.

• If the state’s largest architecture firm was building a building for itself, what would it look like? No need to wonder anymore. We finally got our hands on a rendering of what Lawrence-based Treanor Architects is proposing for the former Strong’s Office Supply building at 1040 Vt.

• Starbucks fans atop Mount Oread soon will have another place to get their fix. The Oread hotel is opening a new coffee shop in its lobby in the next couple of weeks. Although not officially a Starbucks — the shop’s name is Coffee Corner at The Oread — it will feature Starbucks coffee.

The new addition to the hotel comes as The Oread marked its one year anniversary on Jan. 8. With a year in the books, officials with The Oread estimate that the $50 million project has added about 300 jobs to the local economy.

• Lawrence city commissioners Tuesday afternoon will have their most detailed discussion yet about the future of the city’s trash service. Commissioners will have a study session at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall to discuss a “menu of options” city staff members have developed. As we previously reported, that menu of options includes the idea of requiring either all or most city residents to place their trash in special plastic carts. The carts would allow the city to pick up the trash with automated trucks that use robotic-like arms. Click here to see a video of how the system works in Eudora.

The automation plan likely would have an impact on the number of employees the city uses for trash collection. Currently, most city trash trucks operate with a three-person crew. With an automated truck, crew size could drop to two or one.

It all adds up to an issue that will be plenty dicey. City Hall staffers are pointing out a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about how Toledo, Ohio, has suffered through rough times as it transitions to an automated trash system. In that town of about 300,000 people, residents were so unhappy with the idea of having to use the new 96-gallon, plastic carts that the city was receiving about 600 complaints per day. The city ended up having to hire eight operators to staff a new complaint line. It seems unlikely that the city of Lawrence would go as far as Toledo did in some areas. Toledo added to its troubles by refusing to pick up old Christmas trees. Instead, residents had the option of chopping the trees up and placing them in the plastic container.

• Whatever happens with the city’s trash service is sure to include quite a bit of opportunity for public comment. It will be interesting to see what ideas come up. Already, one citizen — Laura Routh, a former member of the city’s Sustainability Advisory Board and someone who follows trash issues closely — has asked the city to consider changing its popular curbside yard waste collection program. During the bulk of the year, the yard waste program runs once a week. Routh is asking the city to review the benefit of cutting that back to perhaps two times per month. There has been a debate in environmental circles about whether the environmental costs of running large trash trucks all over the city to pick up a natural product that will break down in your yard — if you let it — is worth the effort.

• The way the city pays its employees overtime is likely to change. After a City Commission discussion several weeks ago, staff members are now recommending that the city be less generous in its overtime policy. The city currently allows employees to count vacation time, holiday time and sick leave toward the 40 hours worked in a week. Federal law allows employers to not count vacation, holiday or sick leave, and a survey by staff members found most other cities did not do so. Staff members now are recommending that vacation and sick time not be counted toward overtime. Employees in some city departments also have been paid overtime when they worked more than eight hours in a day, regardless of whether they worked more than 40 hours in a week. Staff members now are recommending that practice be discontinued.

None of the changes will apply to police officers and firefighters because they both belong to union-like organizations that have collective bargaining agreements with the city. But those contracts only run through this year. It will be interesting to see what position the city takes with the unions on overtime. Already, past contract negotiations have been contentious. If the city doesn’t apply the same overtime policies to the unions, will other city employees seek to form their own unions? That would be a significant development for the folks who make budgets at City Hall.