Town Talk: Garden store opens in West Lawrence; home store to close in downtown; student housing project wins key votes; N. Lawrence developers to meet more; NE Sector plan still stalled

News and notes from around town:

• Here’s a question for you: What happens if you put a sculpture of a dog too close to a sculpture of a fire hydrant? Well, there’s a new West Lawrence store that can help you find out.

Garden of Decor opened earlier this month at 1540 Wakarusa Drive, which is in the little shopping center right at Bob Billings Parkway and Wakarusa Drive. The shop is a garden store built for people like my wife — it sells stuff for the garden that you don’t have to water. Proprietor Kim Koitzsch is working with about a half-dozen area artists to supply the store with metal sculptures, birdhouses, stained-glass pieces and several outdoor wood-crafted items.

But Koitzsch said thus far, the sculptures, which are made out of recycled metal, have been the most popular items. They’re three-dimensional and include dogs, roosters, fire hydrants and other things my wife won’t water.

The store is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Koitzsch said she believed West Lawrence residents would appreciate not having to drive to downtown to do all their gift-oriented shopping. And with the pride most West Lawrence residents take in their yards, she figured a garden-themed store would be a winner.

I just have one question about the venture. I wonder if she sells sculptures of dead tomato plants? It sure would save some time at my garden.

• If you are scoring along at home, it looks like garden stores 1, home stores 0. The downtown shop House Parts, 714 Mass., has announced it is going out of business.

A closing date is dependent upon how quick inventory moves, but look for the store to close in the next few months. Owner Beverly Dick previously owned a successful business in Hutchinson for a dozen years before opening House Parts in summer 2008. If you remember, fall 2008 got a little crazy, with the world financial system nearly collapsing and all.

That didn’t help business, but Dick also offered a few thoughts on what she would like to see improved in downtown to help small businesses. Basically there were two issues on her mind: Parking and rent rates. She said the city ought to undertake a review of its parking meter system and really determine whether the downtown meters are presenting an unnecessary “challenge for shoppers.” As for rents, well, she’s singing the same song that many retailers sing. She would like landlords to examine their rental rates, and she would like for City Hall to become more innovative in ways to help small businesses.

The store, though, did find itself in a part of the market that has been pretty active over the last couple of years. The longtime downtown retailer Winfield House expanded by moving into new space at 647 Mass., and BIAO Designs became a major player in the market by taking over much of the former Arensberg Shoes building at 825 Mass.

• If plats not pillows, rezonings rather than recliners trip your trigger, well, then you were probably at last night’s Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission meeting. But for those of you who weren’t, here are a couple of updates.

Plans to redevelop the Gaslight Village Mobile Home Park south of 31st and Iowa had smooth sailing before planners on Wednesday. The project — which would build about 350 apartment units totaling nearly 1,000 bedrooms — won a 7-0 vote for both its rezoning and special-use permits.

According to my sources at the meeting, about 10 folks came to the meeting to speak about the issue. Many of those were residents of the Gaslight Mobile Home Village who wanted to be sure that they would receive assistance in having their trailers moved to other locations in the city. A representative with the mobile home park’s ownership group said publicly, as he has before, that the company is fully prepared to financially help with moving costs.

Now the project will head to the Lawrence City Commission for consideration. Look for that in the next few weeks.

As for the other big item on last night’s agenda, it will be more slow and steady as she goes for an idea to redevelop the area around Johnny’s in North Lawrence. Planners deferred that item without even discussing it. Instead, it was decided by all to let the development group first brief representatives of Downtown Lawrence Inc. on the project. That all-member meeting of Downtown Lawrence Inc. is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday at the Lawrence Public Library.

• Also, if you are wondering about what happened to the Northeast Sector Plan that planning commissioners heard at their Monday meeting … well you might want to see a psychiatrist about how to get such boring thoughts out of your mind. No, no, just kidding. What would life be if we couldn’t wonder about the Northeast Sector Plan? After all, it has only been under development since at least late 2009. That’s right, the city and the county have been trying to figure out what the future should hold for the area surrounding the Lawrence Municipal Airport for going on three years now. And don’t blame the city’s planning staff for this marathon. They’ve developed several plans in fairly short order. But city commissioners and county commissioners haven’t been able to agree on how much property should be set aside for industrial purposes in the area. Consequently, no plan ever gets passed by both groups.

Oh, so what happened at Monday’s meeting? I thought that was obvious. It got deferred. The earliest planning commissioners will vote on it likely will be in April.