News and notes from around town:

• Is West Lawrence full of horse and buggies? It must be because as I scan both my memory and the phone book, I don’t believe there is a single auto parts store that you would consider to truly be in West Lawrence. (Apologies in advance if I have forgotten anyone.) That side of town has been the hottest area for residential growth for years, but yet there’s no new auto parts store to serve all the auto owners in the area.

A rendering of proposed facade changes to the shopping center at Sixth and Kasold.

Well, that’s changing. O’Reilly Auto Parts has signed a lease to open an 8,000-square-foot store next to Ace Westlake Hardware at Sixth and Kasold.

Paul Cromer of Lawrence-based American Real Estate and Investments brokered the deal, and he said he believes the store will be open within the next couple of months. The parts store will be in space that previously was occupied by a liquor store, Curves and Thompson Crawley furniture.

In addition to O’Reilly, Cromer also has signed a new nail salon, Chieu Nail Salon, to locate in the shopping center. (You hear that fellows? Sounds like a new Saturday night date place. Shiny nails for her, shiny lug nuts for you.)

With the new leases, which also include a tobacco shop, the center at Sixth and Kasold is making a rebound after seeing its vacancy rates rise in recent years. The center now is 97 percent leased, and several improvements to the facility’s parking lot, and the facades of the buildings are either planned or underway. In addition, the city is expected to make some improvements to the Sixth and Kasold intersection this summer when they repave Sixth Street from Iowa to Monterey Way. My understanding is some right turn lanes will be added to the intersection.

• Set your gaze even farther to the west and you’ll see a flurry of activity at the northwest corner of Sixth and the South Lawrence Trafficway. Lawrence developer Duane Schwada is making sure the momentum does not cool for a public-private partnership to build a new youth fieldhouse/recreation center at the intersection.

Schwada has filed a request with the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Department to rezone about 140 acres at the northwest corner of the intersection. Part of the property — but not all of it — would be used for this fieldhouse/recreation center, which is envisioned to include multiple indoor courts, a track and field facility and other amenities that would attract regional and national youth tournaments to the area.

What’s less clear at the moment is how much other development would occur at the corner. The rezoning request asks for 80 acres of CC 400 zoning, which is a type of commercial zoning that would allow a large variety of retail uses. The request also asks for 15 acres of commercial neighborhood zoning, which would allow for a gasoline station and other types of neighborhood convenience sorts of businesses. And finally, the request includes about 45 acres of IL zoning, a type of light industrial zoning category.

Forgotten in all this talk about a recreation center is that the northwest corner of Sixth and the SLT previously has been identified by an economic development group — ECO 2, if you remember that group — as one of the more promising industrial sites in the county. That’s because the property is relatively near city utilities, it is located along one of the newer and larger state highways in the county, and it is just a stone’s throw south of Interstate 70.

All those attributes also may be reasons to consider the location for a regional recreational complex. Based on the rezoning request, it looks Schwada would like to see a bit of both in the corner’s future.

The property, of course, will have to be annexed into the city if this project is to move forward. My understanding is that city commissioners will formally start the annexation process at their meeting on Tuesday. The annexation and rezoning process will start to answer some of the big questions that remain with this recreation center idea. In particular, it should start to clear up how much it will cost to extend water, sewer and interior roads to the site. I’m guessing it will be a few million dollars, especially when you add in the necessary excavation work to prepare the site for a building. How much of those totals the city will be asked to pay will start to define the parameters of this proposed public-private partnership.

• Speaking of intersections to keep an eye on, Ninth and New Hampshire has squarely planted itself on that list. The proposal for a multi-story hotel/apartment building at the southeast corner of the intersection has become a hot-button issue for the adjacent East Lawrence neighborhood. We should learn later today whether city commissioners will take a key vote on that project at their Tuesday meeting or whether they’ll push it into April.

But as some of you may have read on the Town Talk message board recently, there is a rumor of activity on the northeast corner of the intersection as well. The rumor is that Black Hills Energy — the natural gas provider in the city — will move its administrative offices into Doug Compton’s First Management headquarters at 601 N. Iowa St. That would allow Compton to move First Management’s administrative offices into the second floor of his 901 New Hampshire building, which is already constructed on the southwest corner of Ninth and New Hampshire.

Well, this rumor remains in the unconfirmed category. I gave several people an opportunity to tell me that there was absolutely no truth to it, and no one did that. But no one also said there was a deal in place. It is no secret Compton is looking to sell his headquarters building at 601 N. Iowa, and that he badly wants to move his offices into his new downtown building. But Compton told me recently that he doesn’t have a contract or an agreement that allows him to do that. He didn’t comment on any discussions that may or may not be going on with Black Hills Energy.

As for Black Hills Energy, its spokesman said he wasn’t aware of any pending move, but that is quite a bit different from saying no one in the company is discussing a move. So, for the time being we’ll just watch.

If a move does happen, it will be interesting to see what becomes of the Black Hills corner. Compton told me in this article that he definitely sees the entire Ninth and New Hampshire intersection as one of the city’s better opportunities to create a cluster of living units that would make downtown a more vibrant 24-hour neighborhood. Compton already has a business interest on the northeast corner of the intersection. Lawrence Bank has its downtown branch at the corner. Compton is a director for Lawrence Bank.